Teana's Travels Book 9: Home
by D.K.N
Summary: After several adventures in other realms, Teana (her squad in tow) returns to Midchilda. There, she will reunite with old friends, settle an old grudge, and help prepare for a coming storm... Rated M for violence, language, and brief sexuality.
1. Data

Sorry for the wait; distracting things happened. At long last, Teana returns home… and trouble isn't far behind her. Let's do this.

**DISCLAIMERS:**

_Mahō Shōjo Lyrical Nanoha _(Teana, Midchilda, nearly all other characters here) – 7Arcs

_Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni _(Shion, the "Keiichi Crew") – 07th Expansion and Studio Deen

_Shuffle! _(Kaede Fuyō, Rin, Asa & Ama, Sia & Nerine, Primula) – Navel and Asread

_Erika's New Perfume _(Marie, Sarah, Erika, Timmy, Veronica) – Deviant-Art artist Lance the Young

_Mai-chan's Daily Life _(Mai, Kizuna) – Waita Uziga

_Star Wars _(Ahsoka, Cody, Rex) – George Lucas, Lucasfilm

_Halo _(Forerunners, UNSC, Sangheili Alliance) – Bungie and 343 Industries

_StarCraft _(multiple mentions of characters, events, and devices) – Blizzard Entertainment

_Naruto _(jutsu, abilities) – Masashi Kishimoto

_Mahō Sensei Negima _(spells, abilities) – Ken Akamatsu

PLEASE READ & REVIEW

**-**_**CHARACTER DATA**_**-**

**Character Heights and (for the good guys) Elemental Affinities**

**Teana Uchiha-Lanstar: **5'6" (1.67m); Fire and Wind

**Shion the Nameless: **5'7" (1.7m); Fire and Void

**Kaede Fuyō: **5'3.7" (1.62m); Earth, Fire, and Lightning

**Marie Swanson: **5'3" (1.6m); Fire

**Mai Kitagawa: **5'3" (1.6m); Lightning and Water

**Ahsoka Tano: **5'3.4" (1.61m) excluding montrals; Lightning

**Sarah Swanson: **5'11" (1.77m); Wind

**Nanoha Takamachi: **5'8" (1.73m) (4'8" when she was 9); Fire, Earth, and Light

**Fate Testarossa-Harlaown: **5'10" (1.75m) (4'10" when she was 9); Lightning, Fire, and Darkness

**Yūno Scrya: **5'9.5" (4'9" when he was 9); Wind

**Arf (adult human form): **6' (1.8m); Earth

**Vita 'Yagami': **4'5" (1.35m); Fire

**Signum 'Yagami': **5'9" (1.75m); Fire

**Shamal 'Yagami': **5'8" (1.73m); Wind

**Zafira (adult human form): **6'4" (1.93m); Lightning

**Hayate Yagami: **5'4" (1.6m) (4'9" when she was 9); Wind, Water, and Ice

**Subaru Nakajima: **5'4" (1.62m); Earth

**Ginga Nakajima: **5'7" (1.69m); Water

**Erio Mondial: **4' 7.5" (1.41m); Lightning

**Caro Lu-Rushe: **4'5" (1.34m); Fire

**Vivio: **3'5" (1.04m); Wind

**Lutecia: **4'6" (1.37m)

**Jail Scaglietti: **6'2" (1.85m)

**Cinque: **4'9" (1.44m)

**Sein: **5'6" (1.67m)

**Otto: **5'2" (1.57m)

**Nove: **5'4" (1.62m)

**Dieci: **5' (1.52m)

**Wendi: **5'5" (1.65m)

**Deed: **5'7" (1.7m)

**Sette: **5'10" (1.78m)

**Uno: **6'0.4" (1.84m)

**Due: **5'6" (1.66m)

**Tre: **6' 2.5" (1.89m)

**Quattro: **5'4" (1.63m)

**Zest-2: **6'2" (1.84m)

**Rika Furude: **4'5" (1.35m); Earth, Wind

**Keiichi Maebara: **5'8.5" (1.74m); Lightning

**Reina "Rena" Ryūgū: **5'4" (1.62m); Wind

**Mion Sonozaki: **5'6.5" (1.68m); Water

**Satoko Hōjō: **4'8" (1.42m); Lightning, Wind

**Satoshi Hōjō: **5'7" (1.71m); Water

**Hanyū: **4'11.5" (1.51m); Earth, Wind, Fire, Dust

**Akane Sonozaki: **5'6.5" (1.69m); Fire, Water

**Rin Tsuchimi: **5'9.8" (1.775m); Earth

**Asa Shigure: **5'4.2" (1.63m); Wind

**Ama Shigure: **5'3.5" (1.613m); Wind, Fire

**Lisianthus "Sia" Eustoma: **5'3" (1.6m); Fire

**Nerine Forbessi: **5'0.5" (1.53m); Water

**Primula: **4'11.4" (1.51m); Lightning

**Erika Swanson: **4'7.5" (1.41m); Water

**Timothy Randall: **4'10" (1.48m); Lightning

**Veronica Swanson: **5'9" (1.75m); Fire, Earth

**Kizuna Kawamura: **4'8" (1.42m); Fire, Earth, Lava

**-**_**BOOK 9 START**_**-**

It had been three months since the Incident; three months since Teana's breakdown and resulting departure from Bureau space to realms far, far outside TSAB jurisdiction. Three months since the Forwards lost their tactician, Nanoha lost her prized student, and Subaru lost the girl she loved. Nanoha simply could not forgive herself; her decision to simply trust that the Forwards would follow her teaching plan and trust that she knew what she was doing, along with her decision not to tell exactly why she went the "slow and steady" route, had backfired on her horribly. It was, in her eyes, her fault for not telling Teana everything, for not helping the girl more, for not noticing the girl's growing disillusionment and dwindling self-confidence.

And Nanoha wasn't the only one blaming Nanoha for the situation. Subaru's respect and admiration for Nanoha had flown out the window due to the incident with Teana. So the day after Teana's exodus, Nanoha had acquiesced to the Forwards being shown the data on her near-death experience years ago, and the reasons why she trained them the way she did. It hadn't worked. Subaru had angrily called her out on not coming out with it sooner; "If you hadn't been too embarrassed by your failure to explain yourself, Tia might still be here!"

Nanoha had almost resigned from her post of teaching the Forwards out of disgrace and guilt; Hayate, Fate, and Signum had only barely managed to stop her by convincing her that if she quit, the kids would likely end up tutored by someone with less teaching skill and experience than she, and would suffer in the long run for it. Thus, she still taught them to this day, but only a shred of her former enthusiasm and cheer in teaching them remained; sure, she still stuck to the curriculum she'd laid out, but it was without any of the spirit she used to put into it. Rumor had it that the three remaining Forwards had started extra training on the side, sometimes requesting other RF6 instructors for assistance and others doing it on their own.

Subaru's attitude toward her had turned coolly professional, referring to her as Takamachi-san and being coldly neutral with an occasional suppressed angry scowl when interacting with her, which hurt Nanoha's heart almost as much as Teana's outburst had. …Fate had, probably wisely, chosen not to tell Nanoha about finding torn pictures of her in the garbage outside Subaru & Teana's dorm room a few days after the Incident, or about hearing Subaru crying herself to sleep the night of the event. The blue-haired girl's heart had been broken by losing Teana, and she held Nanoha responsible for it all… as did Nanoha herself.

Around a month ago, though, Nanoha had received a new little bright spot in her life to help chase away the dark clouds: Vivio. The sweet little girl whom Erio & Caro had rescued from Scaglietti's forces had quickly bonded to Nanoha and Fate. Although reluctant at first, Nanoha had come to care for the little child in return. Just yesterday, she & Fate had gotten the girl to call them her "mamas".

Right now, Nanoha sat atop the roof of Riot Force 6's headquarters, sadly staring out at the capital city of Cranagan, her feet dangling over the edge.

"It is beautiful, isn't it, Takamachi-sama?"

Nanoha startled, nearly falling over the edge before she caught herself. She looked to her left, and saw a short figure – around 4'10" – sitting beside her, clad in an identity-concealing black cloak and hood, her hands and feet covered by black gloves and boots. The figure looks at Nanoha, a thin smile visible beneath her hood.

"The wonders that technology and magic can achieve by working together…" the mysterious girl said. "Truly awe-inspiring, isn't it?"

"Y-Yeah…" Nanoha replied. "Who are you? And what's with the –_sama _honorific?"

"I can't tell you who I am, but… let's just say that I hold respect for you because you saved the life of a person who is very dear to me… even if that person does not even know that I exist."

"…You're not… from this world, are you?"

The girl smiled beneath her hood. "Rather perceptive of you. That is correct; I am a traveler from another realm – a planes-walker, if you will. And I have come to do two things. The first is to inform you that Teana Lanstar is still alive and well."

Nanoha's eyes widened. "H-How do you know that?"

"Because I recently fought alongside her against a mutual foe. She's become quite the swordsman, good enough to teach others. Though I hear she is an equally-skilled sniper as well."

She pulled from her robes a mysterious-looking dark blue box.

"The other reason I came is to give you this. It contains detailed audio/video recordings of the happenings in various other realms. I assume you are aware of the Scry Recording Spell?"

"That's how I showed my students the incident where I nearly died" Nanoha replied.

"So you know, then, now this works. I should mention, though, one extra addition to this device: it's enchanted with a temporal distortion spell, so you'll be able to view the entire, several days' worth of footage while only a handful of hours pass outside the distortion field, and the field has been fine-tuned so your bodies will think that only said hours have passed; you'll not need to worry about food or sleep so long as you are all within the field. Furthermore, it has been enchanted so that viewers will be able to sense the energies wielded in the footage. Gather your students, your comrades – show them all it has to offer."

"Will this… show us what Teana's been up to?"

"…Yes. I should inform you, though: the flow of time is not synchronized between worlds. For you, it has been three months since Teana-san left Midchilda; for her, it has been nearly a year. Just thought you ought to know."

The cloaked girl stood up.

"I have to leave now" she said. "Other things require my attention. …A storm is coming, Takamachi-sama. The Bureau will not brave it alone, but must still be ready to batten down the hatches. Farewell."

With that, the girl held out her hand, and a swirling dark portal/gateway formed. She stepped through it, and it then closed, leaving Nanoha alone on the rooftop. The brunette took a minute to process everything, and then got to her feet and headed inside. She needed to make a few calls.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**That Evening (6:30 PM)**

A fairly good-sized audience sat in the RF6 HQ's auditorium, all waiting to view the scried footage. Nanoha, Fate, Hayate, Yūno, Arf, the Wolkenritter, the three Forwards, Ginga, Vivio, Inspector Acous, Shari, Mariel, Alto, Vice, and nearly every other member of RF6's staff, along with Carim & Schach and Chrono & Amy. The revelation that they'd get to see confirmed data on realms outside TSAB jurisdiction that had their own space-faring civilizations – some of them non-human – drew plenty of interest. The fact that they'd get to see what Teana had been up to drew even more.

Everyone settled in, and the show began. First was the brief history of the United Nations Space Command – the ORION Project, the Insurrection, and the morally-grey (as in, Fate was horrified) Spartan-2 project (though the eventual, overwhelming guilt that Dr. Halsey felt redeemed her in the eyes of many of the viewers, including Fate, especially since she went out of her way to treat the Spartans right); the mechanics of slipstream space travel were quite a point of interest for the tech-heads watching. Then came First Contact at Harvest, the revelations of Mendicant Bias' fragment to the three San'Shyuum, and the beginning of the Human-Covenant War. They watched as the humanity of that realm was systematically, mercilessly ground down – men, women, & children all slaughtered ruthlessly, entire planets put to the torch, the heinous Spartan-3 Program (EVERYONE was horrified at this one), the final epic (apparent) sacrifice of the hero Preston Cole, and other pivotal moments, finishing with the Battle of Sigma Octanis, where Jacob Keyes earned his Naval Badass credentials several times over. Throughout it all, they watched the story of John-117, his experiences, trials & tribulations, and other events.

The fact that the Covenant worshipped as gods a 100-millennia-gone galaxy-spanning magitech civilization was noticeably attention-grabbing for Yūno.

Then the footage shifted to the events of the Koprulu Sector. The crowd watched the rise of the Zerg, the cold ruthlessness of the Confederacy, the cynical heroism of Jim Raynor and his joining with the Sons of Korhal… and the eventual reveal of Arcturus Mengsk's true depravity with his sacrificing of Kerrigan and razing of Tarsonis; he fall of the Confederacy and the rise of the equally-corrupt Terran Dominion. They witnessed the Zerg Overmind's plan, the rebirth of Kerrigan into The Swarm, and the fall of Aiur. They observed the actions of Tassadar and Selendis to recruit the Dark Templar, defend Aiur, and try to put an end to over a millennium of Protoss infighting. They watched and _felt _Tassadar's final sacrifice – four different forces being simultaneously channeled to transform the Templar into a cataclysmic bolt of power that slew the Overmind.

They watched the retreat from Aiur to Shakuras, the alliance with Kerrigan, the death of Aldaris, and the purging of the Zerg from the Dark Templar's shadowed homeworld. They witnessed the arrival and advance of the UED, the death of Stukov, the betrayal of Duran, and the harnessing of the Second Overmind. Then came Kerrigan's plan – the re-conquering of the Zerg, the death of the Second Overmind, the death of Duke and Fenix, the death of Matriarch Raszagal. They watched in horror the revelations of Duran's true nature and the abominations he sought to create and unleash. It ended with Kerrigan's victory over three opposing armies at once.

Next was the war between the Sol Confederacy and the Phoenix League, including the former's true monstrousness hidden behind a veil of false benevolence that was eventually stripped away for all to see.

Then came the events of the shinobi world; the existence and mechanics of chakra proved _extremely _interesting, as an "equal and opposite" to magic. The events shown centered on Naruto Uzumaki – the revelation of what he contained, his graduation from the Academy and assigning to Team Kakashi; the events in the Land of Waves (Haku's story struck a chord with Fate… except that in the end, Haku's master _did _care for him, and ended up going out in a blaze of glory in the poor boy's memory); the Chūnin Exams, with Orochimaru's machinations, Gaara's bloodlust and instability, and the sad plights of Hinata and Rock Lee; Jiraiya's taking of the stage, Naruto's first meeting with the _Kyūbi_, and Sasuke's growth; Naruto beating the fatalism out of Neji, Shikamaru's tactical prowess, Gaara's monstrousness, and the Sand & Sound Invasion; the death of the Third Hokage, the revelation of Gaara's true nature and heart-wrenching past, Naruto's victory; the 'attack' of Itachi & Kisame; and Sasuke's betrayal and the epic battles that followed. The idea of a child falling so far for the sake of bloody revenge was found disturbing by nearly all.

And then came what they were waiting for: Teana's arrival in the Epsilon Eridani system. The revelation that Teana's first extradimensional activity – and without any magic, at that – would involve the horrifying Human-Covenant War sent a near-palpable wave of worry through the Forwards and Instructors, which was only marginally mitigated by the flashback that revealed her getting Spartan-esque internal enhancements that made Subaru's cyborg tech look like cartoony steam-punk in comparison. They listened to Dr. Halsey's assessment of Teana and her abilities, including her & the Spartans' criticisms of Nanoha's teachings; while Nanoha did not bother defending herself against most of it, it was pointed out by Fate and Vita that Teana had never been tested for sword skills, which was an oversight on _everyone's _part; everyone had simply automatically _assumed _that her talents lay in baseline shooting magic, a mistake that the entire Instructor group had collectively made. The fact that she also had talent with sniping, however, wasn't as much of a surprise.

They watched with mixed feelings as Cross Mirage was heavily altered by the UNSC, with mass-based firing modes (and a directed-energy firing mode), and a blade of physical-damage superheated magical energy that Teana was told was something else due to her erroneous belief that magic could not be lethal. They witnessed as she integrated with Noble Team, receiving "proper" training, coming to view her team members as family. …They witnessed the final sacrifice of Thom and how it affected Teana. They watched the Covenant's attack on Reach, and as, one by one, Teana lost her entire squad, and humanity's stronghold fell to the unstoppable alien juggernaut. Subaru's heart ached as she saw Tia cry her heart out in Capt. Keyes' arms during the retreat through slipspace, broken by the deaths of Noble.

They all watched as the _Pillar of Autumn _arrived at a _humongous_ Lost Logia, the ringworld megastructure of Halo. The landing on the artificial world's "surface"; the abrasiveness rudeness of Major Silva… and how Teana literally almost murdered him out of rage at what he said ("Losing Noble seems to have had a considerably negative effect on Lanstar's temper" Signum had remarked; "Frankly I'd have smashed his chest in, too" Vita had replied); the rescue of Captain Keyes, and that the Halo was a central item of the Covenant's worship of the Forerunners; The assaults on the Cartographer and the Control Room; the encountering of Chen S'Yar and his revelations regarding the Covenant's political climate… and The Flood, a threat greater than anyone of the Bureau viewers had even imagined; the arrival of the ancient AI 343 Guilty Spark; the incensed Cortana's reveal that the Halo Array – seven installations in all – were in fact a Forerunner weapon-of-last-resort designed to starve the Flood to death by cleansing the galaxy of life (though many Lost Logia could accidentally cause damage on a multi-star-system scale, the people of RF6 were terrified that an array of them had been made to do so _on purpose_, and wondered just how badly the Forerunner-Flood War had gone to warrant such an extreme solution). Cortana's solution to the Halo's threat was viewed by the conservative, WMD-fearing Bureau as "a bit extreme", but the threat posed by Halo and the Flood was unanimously agreed to warrant a gigaton-scale thermonuclear detonation.

They witnessed the Chief & Teana fighting through hordes of Covenant, Flood, and Sentinels to damage the Halo's generators; the assault on the infested Covenant battlecruiser, and Captain Keyes' utterly horrifying fate; the flight to the _Autumn_'s wreck, Guilty Spark's interference, the "lighting of the fuse", the picking up of Foehammer and a Grunt defector, and the hectic flight from the shipwreck minutes before Halo was blown apart. They observed the long, hard road back to Earth, picking up a few Spartans and losing a couple in the process, along with Halsey & Kelly's unexpected exodus.

The Covenant's accidental discovery of Earth and the battle that followed, the rise of the Arbiter, the arrival at Halo-05, the betrayal of Tartarus; the reveal of the Gravemind, whose abominable presence adversely affected nearly everyone on some level, and who revealed a connection between the Forerunners' magic system and the Midchildan system; the fracturing of the Covenant, with the Sangheili and their followers switching sides to aid humanity; Cortana being left behind, while Teana and Arbiter Vadam killed Brute Alpha-Chieftain Tartarus. The data showed the battle of Onyx, how a force of Covenant Loyalists assaulted the Forerunner-made UNSC world, the Spartan-3s prove their mettle, and Linda-058 revealed that she'd taught herself Teana's Crossfire Shoot, using it to very nice effect despite not knowing how to set it from 'stun' to 'kill' (which would've been authorized by Bureau protocol in the situation); the return of the _Starshot_, and the flight to Halo-05.

And then came the awakening of Teana's bloodline, and the revelation that her mother – and thus, Teana herself – was an Uchiha. The shock was palpable, and a quick search by Yūno confirmed that Sayuri 'Lanstar' had indeed seemingly shown up on Midchilda essentially out of nowhere according to records. The return to Earth followed.

The recordings showed the Master Chief's landing on Earth and his fight through the jungle; the battle at Crow's Nest; the push down Tsavo Highway; the attack on Voi; the opening of the Ark Portal, and the arrival of a Flood-infested ship, along with the fight through the city (including Vita reacting with a combination of pride and indignation at Teana's remark regarding her style of dealing with threats); the flight through the portal… and the reveal of _the _single largest Lost Logia _ever_, beyond and above the galactic plane; the attack on the Citadel, and Teana & the Arbiter executing the High Prophet of Truth, lopping the head off of the Covenant and gaining their revenge; the reveal of the replacement Halo-04; the hellish fight through Gravemind's titanic new body; the rescuing of Cortana, and the reveal of the Chief's plan; the touchdown on the new Halo, fighting through Flood, destroying the rampant Guilty Spark, setting the Halo off, and making a daring escape just in time.

After the return to that realm's Earth, the Bureau audience watched as four more dimensional runaways came into Teana's life, each with their own issues to work through, and how they were soon all put together as Gamma Team, with Teana as team leader; Nanoha was both saddened and unnerved by Teana's "live for revenge" advice/speech to Kaede. They watched as Lanstar proved her leadership abilities on Crassus and against Brute holdouts on Earth. Finally came the assigning of crewmembers to the _Starshot_, and the vessel's departure from that realm.

The quick stop-by in the _Star Wars _universe nonetheless set off a new wave of interest and discussion, as Ahsoka Tano was literally brought back from the dead by a Precursor device (that fried itself in the process) and became the sixth member of Gamma Team. Then came the trip to the Koprulu Sector – Shion becoming a Dark Templar, Raynor getting back in action, the Zerg's return after four years of dormancy, the "side-plots" regarding Dr. Hanson and Tosh, the gathering of the artifact pieces… and the eventual reveal of their true purpose, the battle of Char (that saw Teana's _Sharingan _advance to their three-marks state), and the purification of Kerrigan.

The footage switched back to the _Konoha _realm, to Naruto's return after two and a half years of training. The viewers watched as old faces re-emerged; a new threat assaulted the Sand Village; the epic clash against Sasori (that a man would do so much to himself to seek immortality and "perfection" disgusted and horrified many); Elder Chiyo's sacrifice; the introduction of Yamato and of Sai, and the hostility between the latter and the "old guard" of Team 7; the battle at the Heaven-&-Earth Bridge, including Naruto becoming a monstrous rampaging beast powerful enough to take on an S+ opponent and come out on top; the fight against Sasuke, who reaffirmed his beliefs and choice.

Then the narrative returned to Teana and her squad, as they had knowledge of chakra and jutsu literally implanted into their heads by an old delayed-release spell set up by the same precognitive Forerunner who'd left the _Starshot _where Teana would find it; meeting the Phoenix League; a brutal demonstration of what Teana's M99 Stanchion did to a human target; the reveal of Shion's heartbreaking past; the battle against the _kishin_… and, to everyone's astonishment, the awakening of Teana's _Mangekyō_; further shock for the viewers as Marie revealed her self-constructed Intelligent Device (well, the _Starshot_'s VI had helped), with the team still blissfully unaware that it used lethal-set magic rather than "some kind of psionic energy, since magic can't actually seriously hurt anyone, and this thing can" (at Marie saying this and Teana agreeing, Vita started banging her head on a nearby table until Hayate pulled her away and made her stop); and then the departure for the shinobi world.

They watched and listened as Teana revealed her recently-discovered status as the daughter of the Uchiha clan head's long-MIA elder sister… and that she had confirmed that her parents and brother had been killed by high-level shinobi who'd somehow crossed over between realms, which sent the viewing Bureau members into mild shock; they witnessed as Naruto's elemental manipulation training began, as did that of Gamma Team's members, and the hidden powers of Kaede, Shion, and Mai awakened; the incident with the Type-2 _Jinchūriki_, and the following entrance of Hidan & Kakuzu; the death of Asuma (there wasn't a dry eye in the auditorium); Shikamaru's thorough revenge, and Naruto's devastating new technique; the incident with the 3-Tails; the reveal of 'Madara Uchiha'; Jiraiya's epic battle against Pain, that ended with the man converting every last bit of chakra from his cells and mana from his Linker Core into a huge _Rasengan _for one last attack; also, Jiraiya & Pain revealing (through thought-based flashbacks) that Pain was the one who jumped realms and killed Tiida.

The landscape-altering clash between Sasuke and Itachi, with both of them displaying power and skill to match or even surpass the Bureau's Four Great Aces… and Madara's following revelations that turned the viewers' ideas of Itachi upside-down and shook Sasuke to the core… enough to cause Sasuke to truly fall to darkness; the return to Konoha, and Naruto being informed of his mentor's death; the beginning of Naruto's _senjutsu _training… and Pain's assault on Konoha; the revelation that the Six Paths of Pain were all corpse puppets… and Tiida's body was now one of them; Teana's epic battle against Sasuke; Naruto's return and destruction of all but two of Pain's bodies; Hinata's confession and protective fury… and the unstoppable rage of the _Kyūbi _that resulted when Hinata was struck down; the emergence of the eight-tailed abomination that effortlessly broke free of an SS-rank attack; the Fourth Hokage's safeguard; Naruto's defeat of the last Pain.

They watched as Naruto and Teana came face-to-face with Nagato – the real Pain – and learned that he had been _forced _to kill Tiida by Madara; the horrifying and heart-wrenching tale of Nagato's past, how he became the man he was now; Naruto's lecture that struck enough of a chord that Nagato remembered who he once was and sacrificed himself to revive the last several hours' fatalities; Teana forgiving Nagato and learning that Madara had _directly _killed her parents in addition to making Pain kill her brother; Teana reluctantly leaving Madara to Naruto rather than be stuck on the planet for 10 years, and her & the _Starshot_ group leaving that world behind. They watched as a flashback revealed that Teana and Itachi had met shortly before the latter's death, with the not-really-a-traitor leaving Teana an unidentified "gift".

The archived data switched to another Earth, bearing an entirely new system of magic – the Vetus system – that was built around elemental magic (which was much rarer in Midchildan and Belkan systems) and lethal spells; the specifics of the Pactio system were… interesting ("A Pactio with Erio…" Caro murmured; "Huh?" Erio heard his name; "N-N-Nothing, nothing!"). It showed the graduation of the young mage trainee Negi Springfield, his early trials as a magic-bearing middle-school teacher and the much more serious trials that came soon after with the emergence of Evangeline (the core RF6 group were a little surprised to learn of another "immortal loli" even older than Vita); the fights in Kyoto, including the revelation of a _male _antagonist named Fate who was hypothesized to be an Artificial Mage just like the Fate that the viewers knew so well, as well as a monstrous demon that was promptly defeated (off-screen, "so as not to spoil it" said the on-screen message) by Evangeline; the argument between Negi and Asuna that came to a peaceful end; the commencement of Negi's training under Evangeline and Kū Fei; Negi's heart-breaking past (Fate dearly wanted to somehow slip into the recording and give the poor boy a hug, and maybe add him to her list of orphaned, sad, dark-past-possessing children she'd taken under her wing); the attack of Count Hermann, Kotarō Inugami's joining the good guys, the reveal of Asuna's extraordinarily powerful Selective Absolute Magic Cancel (that one _really _through the Bureau viewers for a loop), and Negi slipping into a magic-fueled berserker state, only to regain control and vanquish the dark Count with a display of Lightning magic that matched Fate's (Testarossa) when she was his age, hinting at just how much potential this boy possessed.

Then the _Starshot _arrived. Everyone was shocked by Headmaster Konoemon's revealing of his knowledge of the TSAB, and even more shocked when he explained how Teana's previously-untrained chakra had been adversely affecting her ability to channel mana… and that now that she had learned how to use her chakra, streamlining its flow through her body, she could channel much larger amounts of magic with much less difficulty. He also revealed to her – with painful proof – how Midchildan magic could be, in his words, "set from 'stun' to 'kill'", shattering her long-held viewpoints and restoring her faith in magic. They watched as von-Klaus effortlessly removed Teana's Linker Core Seal, and then felt as she called forth a _huge _amount of magical energy with little effort; she easily had as much as Vita (AAA+) by projection and estimation.

"Her untamed chakra was holding back that much magic?" Nanoha wondered in wide-eyed amazement.

They watched and listened as the girls of Gamma Team took temporary positions as "exchange students" in Class 3-A; the reveal of Evangeline's temporally-displaced resort got several Bureau members talking, especially Yūno; the reveal of Teana's new Barrier Jacket ("She looks good in red" Hayate remarked); Evangeline's confession of, 178 years ago, having fought and single-handedly defeated the Book of Darkness sent astonishment through some of the viewers and flat-out disbelief in others, especially when she claimed to have done so with but one spell (though they did remember the "spoilered" bit earlier). They watched the snippets of the group's training, interspersed with images of Class 3-A's daily life; the emergence of the friendly ghost Sayo; the beginning of the Mahora Festival; Teana's knowledge of the _Rasengan_; the reveal of Chao's "temporal relocation device" and her own status as a time-jumper; the power of the World Tree (or, as the Bureau called it, a tree growing atop and merged into a Planetary Mana Nexus), and the "Kissing Terminator" incident.

The Mahora Tournament – the existence of the chakra/magic fusion _kanka_; Teana's fight against Mana Tatsumiya; the hint of Asuna's troubled past hidden by memory seals; the brutal fight between Evangeline and Klaus that saw the former lose herself to darkness and rage; the reveal of the existence of gravity manipulation magic, courtesy of Albireo; Teana being defeated by Kaede Nagase in Round 2; Evangeline's pain and fury being unleashed on Setsuna, finishing with a devastating speech that broke Setsuna's will, but made Nanoha feel the utmost pity for Eva as she imagined what the immortal blonde had been through to leave her with such viewpoints; the semifinal and final matches, including Albireo's extraordinary Artifact that allowed Negi a conversation with a backup copy of his father.

They watched as the Festival shenanigans continued; Yue's brief love-triangle-induced breakdown and Nodoka's promptly-proposed plan of polyamory; the forming of three new Pactios (with Haruna getting _way _too into it); the brief confrontation with Chao (including a peek at her true motives) that led to the girl's "going-away party"; Marie describing her family (Nanoha, Fate, Shamal, Hayate, and Subaru all agreed that, even as a foot-tall stationary hologram, Erika looked huggably adorable, and her "situation" brought to Nanoha's mind memories of being stuck in a similar state until those particular muscles & nerves had healed after the incident when she was 12); they watched and listened as Teana was made to realize her love for Subaru (the blue-haired girl in question remained as outwardly calm as she could, restricted to a teary smile, but inside she was dancing and shouting/singing "She loves me back~!"); the activation of Chao's plan… and the emergency jump back a week to mitigate it; the _Starshot _crew and the staff & students of Mahora preparing for battle. They watched the climactic aerial battle between Negi and Chao, everyone being utterly horrified by the illegal and _extremely _dangerous method Chao used to perform magic ("How is she even still _alive_, much less fighting?-!" Shamal had said), the Starlight-Breaker-level Fire spell Chao unleashed, and Negi's eventual triumph; Chao's revelations that she came to try to prevent a century-long war with casualties in the billions, and that Negi's actions had seemingly ensured her failure; her departure (though not before accidentally revealing that Negi was literally destined to end up with multiple wives, to his astonished mortification).

They watched the various incidents of the summer vacation – Anya's arrival; the display of Evangeline's _Kosmike Katastrophé_ and the reveal that said spell was what had vanquished the Book of Darkness ("Y'know, I _do _remember a feeling of being really, really cold from one of our past iterations" Vita had remarked), the extreme display of power solidifying Evangeline's status as an SS-rank mage at the least; the possession of Asuna by the ghost of the Sith Archlord Darth Nihilus, and the humanoid abomination's exorcism back to the netherworld; the trip to Wales; the reveal of _Mundus Magicus_,an entire magic-rich planet hidden in a pocket dimension.

Then things got dark as the trip to _Mundus Magicus _began: Fate Averruncus' return, Negi's near-mortal wounding; the battle at the Gateport (including Teana displaying the powerful _Katon: Karyū Endan_, to Signum's (barely-visible) impression, and Negi smashing Averruncus in the skull with the spike he'd just pulled out of his own chest, which impressed and amazed _everyone_); the forced teleportation that split the group out all across the planet; Negi's battle with "mana overload" and Kotarō's unorthodox (yet Bureau-approved) solution; the reveal that Averruncus and his cronies had hacked the Gateport's security cameras and gotten Ala Alba framed for the attack; the predicament four of the girls had found themselves in, and Mai & then Ako's being freed (by her own tailed-beast power and by Zhal Arum & company, respectively); the introduction of the boisterous and obscenely powerful Jack Rakan; Negi's acceptance of _Magia Erebea_, which deeply worried Nanoha & co.; the rescuing of Nodoka and reuniting with Asuna.

Brief snippets were shown of Gamma and Ala Alba watching, essentially, everything up to the current bit of what the RF6 audience now watched; during one bit, when it had shown Precia's final thoughts as she fell into the Void, Fate had almost broken down in tears at her mother's come-too-late redemption. They watched with aching hearts the horror on Teana's face when the fate of her brother's body – made into a corpse-puppet for Pain and then ripped apart by Naruto's _Rasenshuriken_ – was revealed.

The "rematch" against Fate Averruncus, including Teana's unveiling of her new "Forsaken Buster" (confirmed by Nanoha, Fate, Yūno, and Chrono to simply be Nanoha's Divine Buster under a different name); the flashback-film showing the Great War, with Nagi Springfield's heroism and the introduction of the woman who could only be Negi's missing mother; the reveal that Asuna had been replaced by a sleeper agent… who looked to be in "danger" of falling in love with Negi; preparing for the tournament match; Negi revealing that he, a near-11-year-old boy, had learned a SS+ level spell and could pull it off without collapsing from exhaustion immediately afterward, to the Bureau viewers' open astonishment; the arrival of the duplicate of Evangeline, and the beginning of a new wave of training.

The fight against Rakan, where Negi displayed a combination of raw magical power and advancements in magical theory that deemed him – in Chrono's words – the most prodigious mage ever seen; the beginnings of _Magia Erebea_'s encroachment; the return of Yue; the battle against Kurt Gödel, the man's taunting revelations, and Teana's display of a Stage Zero _Susanō _arm, showing how her skills with the _Mangekyō _continued to develop; the Governor's Ball (Subaru was literally drooling at the sight of Teana in a tuxedo); the second confrontation with Gödel, with Negi losing himself to rage and briefly becoming the "Erebus Daemon"; the revelation of _Mundus Magicus_'s position and upcoming dimensional collapse; Gödel's plan that Negi rejected, and the short battle that followed, soon after becoming a three-way battle between Ala Alba, the Megalomesembrians, and _Cosmo Entelecheia_; the display of Marie's Chaos Flare and Teana's Stars' Death Cannon ("What is up with her renaming Nanoha's techniques?" Vita asked exasperatedly; "I believe she still holds enough hatred of Takamachi that she is trying to deceive herself into thinking she has nothing in common with her" Signum had replied).

The reveal of the nature of _Mundus Magicus_' inhabitants, and _Cosmo Entelecheia_'s heinous plan to "rectify" the situation; the unmasking of "Shiori", along with Teana's threat to said girl that left Nanoha & company rather concerned for the redhead's mental state (to the pacifistic Bureau, a former member of theirs casually and quite seriously threatening the life of an unarmed prisoner was horrible, especially holding a lethal energy blade to the terrified girl's throat); the trials to attempt to help Negi conquer his Dark Form; Fate Averruncus' ruminations and increasing psychological development (Nanoha & company immediately recognized how the boy's belief in himself being emotionless and single-minded was very much false; he was simply emotionally repressed and unable to recognize his own emotions, like the Wolkenritter had been before Hayate came into their lives. His sudden rage at Tsukuyomi's threat to 'steal his kill' proved that); Teana spelling out to an utterly flummoxed Negi the nature of his accidental harem of admirers, and how he habitually unwittingly won the affections of nearly every female he met, with Teana herself mentioning that though she was "saving herself" for Subaru (the blue-haired girl suppressed a squee), she was not averse to "having fun" with him at some point in the future; Teana becoming Marie's _Magistra_, while Negi gained Ako, Makie, and Yūna as _Ministrae_.

The arrival of the _Starshot_; Tsukuyomi's attack and her very brutally nihilistic motivations; the hectic flight to the Gravekeeper's Palace; the emergence of Zazie's sister and the implementation of the False Eternal Gardens; the reveal that Teana had already learned to combine her Fire affinity with her _Rasengan_; the epic battle against Dynamis and Fate's _Ministrae_ (including Teana displaying just how serious she'd been with her earlier intent to kill the lot of them, to Nanoha & Subaru's shocked horror); Negi succumbing to darkness more than ever, barely avoiding total transformation into a true daemon; the mobilization to defeat Fate Averruncus, with a masterfully-orchestrated plan and the debut of Teana's massively powerful _Katon: Gōenkyū_; the emergence of Averruncus Four through Six, with Fate A. briefly switching sides to take Quintum down.

The climactic battles between Negi & Fate and between Teana & Dynamis (along with the failing boundary between the Gravekeeper Palace and Mahora Academy, and the start of _Mundus Magicus_' collapse), the latter ending with Tia's _Fūton: Rasengan_ and the former with Fate switching sides ("So artificial mages named Fate switching to the good guys is a multiversal constant?" Hayate had wondered aloud); the reveal of Negi & Teana's ingenious and ambitious plan to save the Magical World; the sudden emergence of the Lifemaker, and the ancient being's resurrection of all deceased _CE _members; Teana's Stage-1 _Susanō _being overcome by three _Khilipl Astrape _at once, and Evangeline showing up in the nick of time to save the three heroes' bacon; the arrival of Ala Rubra, including the spontaneously-resurrected Jack Rakan; Evangeline's devastatingly powerful new SS-rank spell; the Lifemaker's effortless defeat of the entirety of Ala Rubra – including Evangeline – simultaneously; Asuna's awakening and vanquishing of the Lifemaker's avatar… and the reveal that Nagi was the ancient spirit's possessed vessel; Asuna restoring the planet, and Negi & company being lauded as heroes.

The return to that realm's Earth; the Lifemaker's breaking free (with Teana falling into guilt over how her plan to save _Mundus Magicus _without sacrificing Asuna caused the planetary background mana disturbance that weakened the Lifemaker's seal); Chao's return; Teana's fight against Quartum, including the debut of her Star-Crusher (everyone as astounded that she literally managed to pack the power of a Starlight Breaker into a single punch… and not too surprised that she broke her arm in the process); the fight against Averruncus Secundum that saw Teana debut her _Susanō_'s 2nd Stage and Shion go 4-Tails; the sudden fight of Teana & Negi versus a mysterious harbinger of a new threat… who wielded what a very shocked Fate immediately identified as Keyblades (Fate loved that game series), soon followed by the emergence of the mysterious figure that Nanoha identified as the same who gave her these data recordings, fighting alongside Teana & Negi while wielding her own Keyblade, the trio forcing their dark foe to retreat; the discovery and freeing of Queen Arika from her crystalline prison.

The battle against Dynamis, Sextum, Primum, and Septum; the attack of the Lifemaker, and his being exorcised from Nagi… and then forming his own body from gathered mana, killing Chao, and revealing himself to be a Precursor; the entire planet's population of over 7 billion being pulled into the Eternal Garden; Shion's reuniting with the astral projection of her beloved, and mastering of the 5-Tails' power, along with Gamma 3 through 6's own encounters; the girls coming to Teana's aid; the arrival of departed spirits, including Noble Team and Teana's family, to give everyone the strength to break free in an awe-inspiring example of Forerunner magic; the final epic battle against the Lifemaker/Last Precursor, that ended with the ancient malevolent entity's utter destruction at a level baser than that of even quarks; the post-battle celebrations… including the revelations that the girls of Teana's squad had to swing by their homes and face their issues before a mysterious greater threat revealed itself.

They watched as the _Starshot _crew left that realm behind and traveled to Mai & Marie's home realm; Mai got her long-deserved vengeance against her old owner, and rescued her little friend Kizuna; Marie had a heartwarming reunion with her family, who welcomed her and the rest of Gamma Team with open arms, eventually deciding to accompany Gamma on their travels. The stop by Kaede's Earth, where _shinzoku _and _mazoku _walked freely amongst humans; Kaede's brief descent into darkness and the near-fatal beatdown she gave to Asa; the reveal that Asa had literally been slowly dying from mana overload, but her attempts to defend herself had expended the dangerous store of magical energy.

The stop by Shion's home Earth; the fight against the Sonozaki Traditionalists; Rika's explanation of Hinamizawa Syndrome and Tōkyō, and later of the truth about "Oyashiro-sama"; the healing of Satoshi… and the near-death of Kaede as a result of chakra exhaustion, which Teana blamed herself quite harshly for (though Shamal said that there was virtually no blame on Teana's shoulders; it was a healer's responsibility to closely monitor their own energy reserves, which Kaede had failed to do); Teppei Hōjō getting his ass kicked by Colonel Holland; the heartbreaking confession of Rika as she revealed just how long she'd been trying to save her friends; the gambit against Takano that led to the woman being broken and betrayed by Tōkyō, dying in utter despair at Rika's feet; the assault on Tōkyō Headquarters, and the "meeting" with Kadak; Shion's final fight against her fallen grandmother; the return of Teppei and then of an actual demon… along with Teana awakening her _Susanō_'s Third Stage, revealing in the process that Itachi's "gift" was to inherit his _Susanō _as her own after his death, with which she sealed the demon away forever.

The footage ended with the _Starshot _departing the realm with even more new additions to the crew, with the viewers not being told where they were heading next. By the time it was done and the temporal distortion field lifted, it was nearly 10:00 at night.

Later on, as everyone went to bed, they couldn't help but wonder where their wayward soul would end up next…

**-**_**CHAPTER END**_**-**

Next time, the _Starshot _arrives in the skies above Midchilda, just in time to help push back Scaglietti's latest assault. Gamma Team meets Riot Force 6, and everyone starts preparing for whatever storm is coming.

PLEASE READ AND REVIEW


	2. Homecoming

It's a hell of a homecoming party.

SEE FIRST CHAPTER FOR DISCLAIMERS

PLEASE READ & REVIEW

**-**_**CHAPTER START**_**-**

**Cranagan (capital city of Midchilda)**

**Five Days After Archived Footage Viewing**

It was so sudden as to seem surreal, really; one minute the city was calm, the next there was a tremendous swarm of Gadget Drones rolling through and flying over the city. Judging by their movements, they were searching for something, and blasting anyone who got in their way. The heavy hitters of Riot Force 6 had been scrambled nigh-immediately, as civilians were rapidly evacuated to safehouses within the affected areas. The problem was that "affected area" included pretty much the whole damn city. RF6's instructors and Forwards were spread thin, and the local TSAB Army garrison wasn't doing too well to help.

75,000 feet over the city, a cloaked vessel emerged from slipspace. Data on the situation far below was rapidly processed. The team was readied, short-range teleporters prepared to send them down. The team lead, standing before her squad, raised her blade and decided to finally use the phrase Gabriel Tosh had coined for them:

"Cry havoc, and let slip the girls of war!"

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

Subaru lashed out with another super-powerful punch, smashing a Type-1 drone hard enough to send it flying into another, destroying both. But the damn things just kept coming! She had gotten separated from Ginga, Erio, and Caro, and had been fighting these things alone for around 10 minutes now. She was starting to get worried about how much longer she could keep this up.

"Seeker Swarm"

The sudden announcement from a male-based electronic voice heralded a barrage of purple-tinted concussive magic blasts that wrecked a good portion of the droids. A charged burst of pale-purple electricity flew out next, hitting a Type-3 Drone in the photoreceptors and taking it out.

"So you're Subaru" said a girl's voice from behind the blue-haired mage. "The Boss goes on about you a fair bit. You're a bit shorter than I expected; still taller than me, though."

'That voice…' Subaru's felt mild shock as she remembered the footage from several days ago. She turned around, and her eyes widened as she immediately recognized the girl standing there, clad in her black & grey Barrier Jacket, her Device in Cannon Form.

"Yo" Marie said with a grin.

-_Mini-Break_-

Erio moved about as quickly as he could, using Strada to cut down the Gadget Drones as they came at him, while Friedrich fired fireball barrages at the drones that tried to harm his Mistress, who in turn was maintaining a Defense Boost for Erio while also firing the occasional blast of magic at the drones. A Type-3 charged/rolled toward Caro, shrugging off the blasts she & Friedrich sent at it, and Erio wasn't going to reach her in time. Caro braced herself… and, in a flash of movement, the Type-3 was sliced into four pieces, the edges glowing with heat. The person responsible stood crouched in front of Caro, her twin lightsabers held out to either side. She stood up, her very alien features instantly recognized by the two little mages.

"Hey, kids, want some help?" Ahsoka said. "I've got _plenty_ of experience scrapping battle droids."

-_Mini-Break_-

Ginga crashed through another Type-3 Gadget Drone, and then delivered a roundhouse kick that scrapped a Type-1. She looked up and ahead, and spotted a squadron of Type-2s flying toward her, unleashing a "light" bombing run. She braced herself, preparing for pain.

"_Doton: Doryūheki_!"

A half-dome wall of chakra-reinforced stone shot up from the pavement, surrounding and protecting Ginga from the air strike. Type-1 Gadget Drones then began to fall, shots piercing through their photoreceptors. Ginga heard a person land behind her, and turned around… and her jaw dropped just a little as she recognized the girl.

"Hi" Kaede said, grasping a bone-blade in one hand. "Mind if I join in?"

-_Mini-Break_-

Vita's hammer swung again and again, each swing either smashing a drone or sending a _Schwalbe Fliegen _into/through one. Being swarmed by Type-1s, she swung Graf Eisen in a circle, bashing them all away. Then, before she could do anything else, she was a Type-1 go flying across her field of vision with considerable velocity, a big dent in its side. She quickly spun around, blocking a hit from a modified Type-1… and the little drone was then bisected horizontally by a glowing two-pronged blade of plasma. Vita quickly recognized the tall blonde responsible.

"…So you girls are here now?" Vita asked.

"That we are" Sarah replied. Another batch of Gadget Drones appeared from around the corner. In response, Sarah readied the Jiralhanae Gravity Hammer she'd slung across her back, taking position. Vita grinned and readied Eisen.

"Stop!" Sarah started.

"Hammer time!" Vita finished.

The two rushed in, and Gadget Drones were soon reduced to so much scrap metal.

-_Mini-Break_-

Nanoha flew low over the ground, unleashing Axel Shooter blasts at the horde of Gadget Drones attacking her. However, her thoughts were not entirely on the current situation, and soon she found herself boxed in between a trio of tall buildings. This wasn't an unwinnable situation, but she would have to fight kinda hard to get out of this one. She readied herself, and the drones began to advance on her…

…Only for several of them to start falling to the ground in pieces, the edges glowing with heat, as a faint shimmer in the air moved about at speed, drones being cut down wherever it went. The figure de-cloaked, and Void-Jumped over to Nanoha's side. Seconds later a light-brown-haired girl leapt in, using a plasma sword to cut down another two Drones.

"S-Shion and Mai…" Nanoha muttered, eyes wide. "Teana's squad-members…"

-_Mini-Break_-

Ginga: "If you're here…"

-_Mini-Break_-

Erio: "…then that means…"

-_Mini-Break_-

Subaru: "…that… maybe…"

-_Mini-Break_-

Fate and Signum watched in surprise as a red-orange blur suddenly rushed through the horde of Gadget Drones attacking them, droids falling to the ground in pieces wherever it went. They couldn't see who it was at first, but then in a blitz of movement she appeared in front of them, crouched down and blades out, as a dozen more Type-1s fell apart in her wake. She stood up and faced them.

"I'm back" Teana said simply.

Before Signum could say anything, Fate lunged forward and pulled Teana into a hug.

"Do you have _any _idea how worried we've been?-!" Fate said, nearly crying. "Until we got the data packet five days ago, you could've been long dead for all we know!"

"I'm sorry" Teana replied as she gathered herself and hugged back. "I wasn't exactly in a position to contact any of you, and… I needed distance – to cut myself off from the Bureau for a while. …Technically, I'm not part of the TSAB anymore; I'm UNSC. But… you'll always be my motherly, soft but firm, dependable, distractingly beautiful Instructor Testarossa, no matter what flag I march with."

"This is touching and all," Signum interrupted, "but another wave of Gadget Drones is incoming. How's about you put your newfound sword skills to the test against ours…" a smirk, as Signum's competitiveness took hold "Ms. Uchiha-Lanstar?"

Teana's own newfound love of competition led her to make an identical expression once Fate let go of her. "That depends; have you gotten faster since an emotionally distraught teenager kneed you in the gut?"

"I hadn't been expecting you to successfully dodge. …You seem rather friendly, considering how you left us."

"Oh, make no mistake; I'm still gonna throw down with Takamachi. But you two I have no problems with; I've figured out you weren't in on the little conspiracy against me."

Fate was about to protest how there was no such "conspiracy", how Nanoha had been borderline-heartbroken by the incident, but decided to shelve it for the moment, as the Gadget Drones were growing closer.

"_Gamma-1, this is Gamma Actual_" Col. Holland's voice comes over the comm.; across the city, the members of the RF6 have tapped into the channel. "_Have you linked up with the local defenders yet?_"

"Affirmative, Actual" Teana replied. "I have linked up with Lightning-1 and Lightning-2."

"_This is Gamma-2; Gamma-5 and I have linked up with Star-1._"

"_This is Gamma-3, have linked up with Star-5._"

"Star-5?" Teana questioned.

"_Ginga-san_" Kaede replied.

"Oh. So she's my replacement…"

"_This is Gamma-4; I've linked up with Star-3. Figuring out you're here has put a real fire under her, Boss._"

"_This is Gamma-6; I have linked up with Lightning-3 and Lightning-4._"

"_This is Gamma-7; I'm with Star-2._"

"_Hey, Hayate, are you listening in?_" Vita said over the comm. "_When this is over, I want a Gravity Hammer Mode for Graf Eisen; Swanson's kicking ass with hers!_"

"If you could send a few reinforcements, Colonel, it'd be appreciated" Teana said.

"_We'll do more than that_" the Colonel replied.

Several seconds later, the _Starshot _itself exited slipspace over the city. Fighter craft and dropships began emerging from it, and the ship's point-defense guns began cutting into the enemy air forces. The Bureau forces below were startled by the sudden appearance of a ship almost as big as a TSAB cruiser, but the fact that the ship in question was attacking the Gadget Drones and not the Bureau personnel was a relief. When dropships began swooping in, dropping off troops, the Bureau soldiers were deeply shocked to see mass-based weapons being used by the newcomers, and no magic, but figured that fighting off an enemy attack was more important than adhering to TSAB protocol regarding first contacts with mass-weapon-using civilizations, and decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

The presence of non-humans amongst the newcomers was even more of a shock, but hey – gift horse.

When the enemy numbers had been reduced to about a third, they retreated, being hounded by fighter craft and aerial mages until they were no longer within Cranagan's limits. As the civilians slowly came out of the safehouses and saw the gigantic ship hovering in the sky above, Bureau personnel had to work to prevent a "Dear Saint, what is that?-!" panic from breaking out. By the end of things, Fate, Signum, & Teana were closest to Riot Force Headquarters, and headed there to simply wait for everyone else to show up. They didn't have to wait long.

"TiaaaaaAAAAAAAAAA!-!-!-!-!"

Teana turned around at the ever-loudening sound of her name, as she recognized the voice.

"Suba-WAGH!-!"

The blue-haired girl's high-speed tackle-hug bowled Teana over, the two rolling to a stop several feet away, Subaru latching on to Teana for dear life and shedding tears of joy and trying to talk coherently, occasionally succeeding ("Kyaaa! S-Subaru, we're in public!" "I don't care!-!"). Marie showed up soon after, landing beside Fate and Signum.

"Damn, she _really _missed the Boss" Marie said.

"You don't know the half of it" Fate replied. "She's been an absolute wreck." She then turned to face Marie. "So… How did you manage to construct an Intelligent Device all on your own?"

"Well, it wasn't really all on my own. I had help from Cross Mirage, the _Starshot_'s VI, and a Huragok named Drifts Slightly Left… At least, I _think _that's its name…"

By now Teana had gotten Subaru to calm down a little, though the blue-haired girl was still holding onto the redhead for dear life, though she was quieter.

"Tia?" Subaru said, her face still buried in Teana's shoulder.

"Yeah?"

Subaru looked up, meeting Teana's eyes. "Please don't ever leave me again. I'm… I'm incomplete without you. I haven't had a good night's sleep since you left us. I couldn't take not knowing if you were okay. Tia… I know now… that you love me. And…"

And then she leaned up and kissed her.

Subaru spoke telepathically: "_I love you, too_"

Near-instantly, Teana forgot everything & everyone else. She didn't resist as Subaru pushed her down, pinning her to the soft grass as the kiss continued, then wrapped her left arm around Teana's waist while entwining her right hand's fingers with Tia's left. After nearly a minute, Subaru pulled apart and up onto her hands & knees, looking down at Teana – eyes half-open, red-orange hair splayed out beneath her, cheeks flushed.

"So beautiful…" Subaru murmured with sheer reverence as she softly caressed the side of the other girl's face with her left hand, which caused Teana's blush to deepen.

A sudden cough drew the two girls' attention to Marie, who was blushing a little at the sight but also had a big grin on her face. Fate had a similar expression, while Signum was turned to the side, trying to hide her own face. Immediately the two teens' faces went beet-red, and Subaru gave a nervous laugh as she gingerly pulled Teana up into a sitting position. The two fidgeted as Fate suppressed a giggle.

"Teana-san!"

The redhead turned her attention as Erio and Caro came running up, Ahsoka casually strolling behind them. The two kids jumped in, latching onto Teana in a three-person hug that Subaru quickly added to. Kaede and Ginga showed up next, and as soon as the three Forwards let go of Teana the elder Nakajima pulled her into another hug. Sarah and Vita showed up next, already chatting like friends.

"Man, Signum," Vita said, "this girl might be almost as good with a hammer as I am!"

"Might be?" Sarah replied with fake indignation. "Such tall words coming from a girl who's shorter than my baby sister…"

"Oh, you wanna make something of it, Skyscraper?" Vita fired back, though with a smirk on her face that showed this was just the two new friends' way of 'bonding'.

"Somehow, I had a feeling those two would get along" Signum muttered with a small grin.

As Ginga helped Teana to her feet, the last three people arrived at the scene. Shion and Mai arrived first, and then…

As Nanoha and Teana caught sight of each other, they had wildly differing reactions. Nanoha's expression was a mixture of relief, concern, and guilt; Teana's expression hardened into a calm, angry glare. The two slowly took a few steps toward each other, everyone else getting out of the way.

"Uh-oh" Ahsoka whispered.

"…Teana…" Nanoha said softly.

"Do not speak to me so informally, Takamachi" Teana said in a calm, cold, sharp tone. "It has been – for me – nearly a year, but I _have not _forgotten what you did to me. We _will _fight; I _will _have my revenge… but not today. Soon, but not now. Right now…" she turned to face the Forwards and Gamma, who looked to her. "I just want to spend time with my teams." Her tone softened. "Both of them. …You'd best prepare yourself, Takamachi; in a few days' time, we'll settle things. But there will be no more fighting on this day. All I want today is to be with the people precious to me."

"…Okay. We'll get things sorted out later; right now you should be with them. Your love for them is more important than your… hatred of me."

"…Indeed it is."

"And… Teana-san… I know it won't mean much to you, coming from me, but… I'm so, _so_ glad that you've come back in one piece."

"…I'm not in one piece. I haven't been since I became the last survivor of Noble Team. But I'm close to it, thanks to these girls. If you'll excuse me…"

Without further ado, she turned and walked away, walking over to Gamma Team and the Forwards. After having seen how much Teana's need for vengeance burned within her, seeing her turn away from it – even for a few days – was a shock to nearly everyone. Teana found herself being hugged by Sarah.

"Having seen what you were like when you first started your journey, and then what you are now…" the blonde said. "You've grown, Teana. You should be proud."

The redhead simply nodded, letting herself relax into the hug.

"We should bring the others down" Marie said. "Let the rest of the gang meet the locals. And I know that Shipmaster Arum and Colonel Holland have got some 'splainin to do."

"Wait'll you girls meet me & Nanoha's daughter" Fate said.

"Daughter?-!" Teana snapped to attention.

"W-Well, she's actually a little girl we found wandering the streets with a Lost Logia chained to her" Nanoha replied. "We've determined she's a clone of someone who's likely long-dead. We don't know where exactly she came from, but for the time being Fate-chan & I have taken her in. Her name is Vivio, she's about five years old, and she's already started calling the both of us 'mama'."

"Perhaps we should go inside" Signum spoke up. "The rec room should be big enough to fit all of us."

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**That Evening – 10 PM**

Teana lazed about in the easy chair in HQ's rec room, Subaru squeezed in next to her, arm around Teana's shoulders. Thankfully, while the Bureau higher-ups were extensively interviewing and talking with Holland and Arum, they weren't gonna start questioning Teana for a couple of days. She'd spent most of the day simply enjoying the presence and company of the Forwards and Gamma Team. She had acquiesced to a detailed med-scan and physical from Shamal, who was _very _interested in the various enhancements Teana's body now had. At the same time, Shario and Mariel had been allowed to speak with and examine Cross Mirage; the Device's upgrades proved a considerable source of interest to the two, _especially _the UNSC-designed Riemann crystal matrix that allowed for dramatically increased processing power and intelligence for the AI. Also, the Mjolnir Armor schematics would certainly keep Mariel and her tech-heads busy for a while (though it was a certainty that the TSAB wouldn't be able to create their own MJOLNIR armor without an extra decade or two of technological advancement in some important fields). Shario also praised Marie for doing such a good job in constructing her own Device, and was already drawing up plans to upgrade Charon to increase efficiency (including reducing the amount of cartridges needed for higher-end attacks). Lastly, the effects of Khaydarin and Jorium crystals when installed in Devices' systems were quickly taken note of, and plans were made to possibly install them in the Instructors' & Forwards' Devices.

Erika, Timmy, Veronica, Asa, Rika, & Hanyū had come down from the _Starshot_ and mingled with the groups. Erika & Timmy had very quickly become friends with Erio & Caro, with little Vivio (who even Teana found undeniably adorable) also quickly taking a shine to Erika, and Erika in turn quickly coming to trust Fate (enough to let her change her, even; Fate was the aunt of two young children, after all); Erika was, in fact, rather popular with _all_ of the Local Group, as once the shyness was worked past she was adorably cheerful and friendly (Hayate was already starting to come with cute outfit ideas, which Sarah gleefully contributed to); Shamal was teaching Asa some healing magic; Nanoha and Rika had a quiet and surprisingly deep conversation regarding the nature of happiness and fighting destiny; and Hanyū talked with Vita, Signum, and Hayate about painful cycles and breaking free of them, and how the power of belief could create miracles.

Subaru stretched as she got up out of the chair, pulling Teana to her feet.

"Can I… sleep in your room tonight?" Teana asked, a little shyly.

"_Our _room" Subaru replied. "It's been our room since we first joined this unit, and it still is no matter how long you've been away. Come on."

The two made their way down the quiet halls, soon reaching their shared dorm-room. They stepped through, the lights coming on automatically.

"I'm back…" Teana murmured. She then felt as Subaru embraced her.

"Welcome home…" the blue-haired girl replied.

Teana didn't object when Subaru claimed her lips again, nor when the short-haired girl gently pushed her down onto the bed and started to undress her. Teana knew she wouldn't be getting much sleep tonight, and she was quite okay with that. As Subaru's soft, warm hands started to roam, Teana thought of how she was _very _okay with having come back to Midchilda.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Next Day – 9:30 AM**

"Okay," Nanoha said as she looked out at the group gathered before her – everyone except Subaru and Teana, at the moment, "today Vita, Signum, Fate, and I will be testing the members of Gamma Team individually to measure their skills and capabilities. We won't be making them go all-out; just finding out their basic abilities and how they stack up. We'll be doing Sarah, Ahsoka, Mai, and Marie today; Kaede, Shion, and Teana will come tomorrow."

At this point, a very happy Subaru practically skipped out of the building door nearby. Following in her wake was a slightly wobbly Teana who looked a little tired. The redhead was still feeling the aftereffects; Subaru had brought her to climax _eight times _last night, and three more this morning! Her body felt like jelly at the moment, and she was amazed that Subaru (whom Teana had given five) was still so full of energy. 'And I thought _I _had stamina…' the redhead thought.

…Okay, Teana thought with a smile, she had to admit that she had loved every wild, heavenly, nerves-singing-in-pleasure second of it.

"What's going on?" she asked as she slightly-unsteadily walked up to the group.

"…I see Subaru didn't waste any time" Signum remarked with a tiny smirk.

Teana blushed in response, and Subaru then came in, putting an arm around her waist, and she laid her head on the short-haired girl's shoulder. She paid the increasing of Signum's smirk's size no mind.

"I and the other Instructors are going to be testing the basic abilities of Gamma Team's members" Signum said. "We're testing Gamma 7 through 4 today, and 3 through 1 tomorrow."

"Good" Teana replied. "I am in no condition to do anything athletic right now."

"Aw, you're a great athlete, Tia" Subaru said, snuggling the redhead and switching to a sultry tone of voice. "You do have the… flexibility of one…"

The redhead blushed again and shot an annoyed look at Subaru, who merely giggled in response. Nearby, Erika blushed and let out a quiet "Oh…" as she finally put two and two together.

"Okay, you two wild & crazy teens," Sarah said as she walked up behind them, "save Round 2 for this evening. Right now you've got a show to watch."

"Sarah-san, you're up first" Nanoha said. "Unarmed close combat with Fate, and then you'll show Signum how good you are with that plasma sword."

"Welp, here I go" the blonde said as she followed Fate to the training grounds, everyone else following along.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

The next few days were rather relaxed and routine. According to the instructors, Ahsoka was the best swordsman of Gamma Team (with Teana a close second), Sarah and Teana were tied as the best in unarmed close combat, and Marie was the most accomplished at mid-to-long-range magical combat (though Kaede and Teana were both better shots with weapons in said ranges). Combination exercises had followed, leading to the four instructors praising Gamma for their teamwork. Also, when questioned, Marie had explained to Nanoha the basics of Teana's method of training: push a person to the very knife's-edge of safe limits, but not one step beyond under any circumstances – an interesting comparison to Nanoha's slow-and-steady method and Evangeline McDowell's "leave 'em half-dead and have Konoka heal them afterwards" style.

Colonel Holland and Shipmaster Arum had spent a _lot _of time talking with and explaining things to the TSAB. Ultimately, their presence was decided to be welcome so long as they didn't directly and deliberately cause trouble for the Bureau. Of course, the Bureau higher-ups knew that they were actually the ones at a disadvantage, for the same reason that Teana would not – and _could _not – be punished for "deserting from the TSAB". Namely, if any of the Time-Space Administration Bureau attempted to punish Lanstar – a certified member of the United Nations Space Command – for 'desertion', the UNSC would treat it as an act of aggression against one of their own, and would be "responded to accordingly". And if the UNSC and the TSAB got into a war with each other, the juggernaut that was the Sangheili Alliance would very quickly join in on the UNSC's side, and if Jim Raynor caught wind the Raiders would probably jump in, too. And if the winds blew right, the Protoss and the Phoenix League would likely take Lanstar's side, too. Lanstar would go unpunished, because attempting to do otherwise would result in the Bureau getting caught in a war against a coalition of several very militarily powerful sovereign entities that they would stand no chance of even surviving against, much less defeating.

A noteworthy development was the reveal of data regarding Tiida Lanstar's true fate – being taken down not by a B-rank criminal mage, but by an SS-rank shinobi capable of literally flattening a city in one blow. And that Tiida had actually put up a solid fight before being overwhelmed. Many people were practically falling over themselves apologizing to Tiida's surviving friends and little sister, though Teana had made it abundantly and painfully clear that the apologies were_ not _accepted.

The "passengers" that the _Starshot _had picked up in the last three worlds either started or continued training with their newfound abilities granted to them by that ancient spell infused into the ship. In addition, the Instructors and Forwards of RF6 had been granted access to copies of scrolls from Konoha explaining crash-courses on accessing & manipulating one's chakra, and performing _jutsu_.

On the fifth day after the _Starshot_'s arrival, Nanoha received a typed message in the morning, shortly before heading out to pick up groceries, that stirred a variety of emotions:

"_Takamachi,_

_It is time we settle things. Meet me in the rocky grasslands 15 kilometers outside the city at 0945; plenty of room for both of us to go all-out, and no innocent bystanders to get in the way. My revenge has waited nearly a year; it will wait no more. Be there, or I will find you. Bring no-one else, and if you inform anyone ensure that they do not follow you. Today this ends, one way or another._

"_Signed: Chief Warrant Officer Grade 5 Teana Uchiha-Lanstar, United Nations Space Command Naval Special Warfare_"

**-**_**CHAPTER END**_**-**

Next time, the long-awaited clash finally takes place.


	3. Grudge Match

Teana has lived for the possibility of getting vengeance on Nanoha for nearly a year. Now that she has the opportunity, though, is revenge really what she wants?

…Yes. Yes it is.

NOTE: I am presently participating in a play-by-post RP where things are posted in present tense. If I accidentally do so in this chapter, breaking from the past-tense that it's supposed to be, I apologize.

Also, this took me a little while because I'm starting a playthrough of Halo Reach through Halo 3 in preparation of Halo 4's upcoming release.

AND THEN: when I finally finished typing this chapter up, fanfiction-dot-net was down for whatever reason, so I had to wait for them to get their shit together so I could post this.

Lastly, the next chapter's probably gonna take a little while due to my upcoming acquisition of _Pokémon White Version 2_.

SEE FIRST CHAPTER FOR DISCLAIMERS

PLEASE READ & REVIEW

**-**_**CHAPTER START**_**-**

**Deserted landscape ~15 kilometers outside Cranagan**

Nanoha flew out over the dusty, rocky plains, the city of Cranagan growing increasingly smaller behind her. She was not looking forward to this – having to deal with her old favorite student trying to kill her made her heart ache, and she hoped & prayed that Teana would listen to reason, and – failing that – that both of them would survive this fight.

Soon, she saw a red figure standing below, looking up at her. She flew downward, landing in front of Teana. The younger girl gave her a calm glare.

"You made it" Teana simply said. "Good. As you can see, there's no-one else around for miles. So we won't need to hold back. As of 1.3 seconds ago, Cross Mirage has hacked into and disabled your limiter, so you and I can both fight at full strength."

"Teana…" Nanoha said with a sad, pleading expression. "Please… We don't have to do this…"

"I disagree" the redhead snarled in reply. "I've been waiting for this moment for nearly a year – revenge against you for all that you did to me! Holding me back to try as some sick joke and to make me a pathetic laughingstock to make everyone else feel better! Not even bothering to tell me that chakra even existed, much less that without training to harness it, it was interfering with my body's ability to channel mana! You wanted a weakling, but instead I've become one of the most powerful mage-shinobi alive! And now I'm going to make you _pay _for holding me back, for making me _weak_, for working to further tarnish the Lanstar name!"

"Teana, please, listen to me! I never wanted to-"

"Shut up and fight!" Teana punctuated her interruption with a Crossfire Shot bolt that narrowly missed Nanoha's head. "I don't care what lies you'll try to use to save yourself, White Devil! This ends _now_! Only one of us is leaving this fight alive!-!" She summoned her twin Mirage Longswords, taking a stance. "_Come and die!-!_"

Nanoha' head hung low, her expression unreasonable. A single tear fell to the ground at her feet.

"I see…" she said in a low, flat tone, identical to the one she'd used during The Incident three months (for her) ago. "You're not going to hear me out. …This is going to hurt me so much to do, but… You call me a Devil? That's fine."

(BIG BATTLE MUSIC: _KINGDOM HEARTS _OST – "Destiny's Force")

Her head rose, a calm, focused look on her face as she called Raising Heart to readiness.

"I'll just have to use my hellish tools to get you to listen to me!"

An aura of power flared to life around Nanoha, an equally-strong one coming from Teana a second later. In a blur of movement, Teana struck first, and Nanoha brought Raising Heart up in time to block the downward strike from Mirage Longsword. She followed with a barrage of strikes that Nanoha expertly blocked.

"…You've been taught swordsmanship" Teana said, her blades and Nanoha's staff locked.

"My entire family is composed of those skilled in the art of the blade" Nanoha replied. "Having seen you in action via the data-feeds, I can say with confidence that my father could defeat you in a no-powers duel, and my elder brother could give you a fair bit of trouble. After I became a mage, I studied as much as I could under my father and older siblings. I just never thought I'd have to use my family's skills in this kind of situation."

"They won't save you" Lanstar growled as she leapt back, her hands rapidly forming seals.

"_Fūton: Shinkūgyoku_!"

Nanoha quickly conjured a flat shield-spell to block the barrage of wind bullets. The shield was almost cracked through by the time Teana finally ran out of air in her lungs to fuel the technique and had to cut the barrage off, and Nanoha quickly took advantage of the brief opportunity and fired a wave of Accel Shooter blasts. Teana's _Sharingan _spun to life and she quickly called forth an equal number of Crossfire Shot projectiles, letting them fly and nailing each of Nanoha's blasts, the two attacks cancelling each other out.

Teana rushed in again, starting another close-combat fight. Years of experience sparring with Fate and Signum gave Nanoha the speed and technique necessary to not only block, parry, or dodge Teana's attacks, but launch counterattacks that kept Lanstar on her toes. Nanoha managed to use a feint to land a rising knee to Teana's midsection, and then a thwack to the side of the head with Raising Heart's staff. Teana quickly leapt back and up, working through the pain and avoiding a follow-up strike. She took up position hovering about 30 feet away and 20 feet up, charging magic.

"_Sagitta Magica: Series Ignis_!"

Nanoha braced herself and shielded to block the barrage of fire-type magical projectiles… and was blindsided by a powerful roundhouse kick to her side that sent her tumbling. She quickly recovered and flew up into the air, Teana close behind. The two traded shots for a while, pink Accel Shooters and red-orange Crossfire Shots crisscrossing through the air between the two mages, being dodged, intercepted, blocked, and in a few cases actually hitting their intended targets. As soon as the two stopped firing, Teana called up a pair of Shadow Clones, which then rushed at Nanoha. By the time Nanoha had dispelled both of them, the real Teana was charging her, left arm glowing as she struck with a Phantom Fist (Phantom Blazer packed into a punch). The shield that Nanoha conjured up absorbed some of the damage before shattering, but the glowing orange fist still impacted Nanoha hard in the stomach, sending her flying back. She pulled out of her brief uncontrolled spin, and began charging her own power.

"Accel Shooter: Storm Shift!"

A massive barrage of bright-pink energy blasts raced out, and Teana flew into motion, flitting about as the storm of magical projectiles chased her. As she flew around, she picked the projectiles off a few at time with precision Crossfire Shots or wind-bullets, and then called up a full-surround shield-barrier to tank the rest of them. As soon as it faded, she extended and shaped her mana, and Nanoha found herself suddenly surrounded by Crossfire bolts in every direction:

"Crossfire Convergence: Macross Shift!"

Teana clenched both fists, and every single bolt came rushing in at Nanoha from all directions simultaneously, the varying distance from her resulting in a punishing barrage that lasted several seconds, 'smoke' and flashes of light obscuring her as the impacts continued. Teana smirked… and then cried out in surprise and pain as a handful of Accel Shooter bolts, launched during the earlier barrage and held farther out in reserve at Nanoha's mental command, smacked into her from behind. She growled as she shrugged off the sudden pain, just as the smoke obscuring Nanoha cleared. The white-clad mage's shields had plainly not blocked the entirety of the barrage, going by the 'light' damage to her Barrier Jacket and a few surface wounds. The two stared each other down for a bit.

"I should confess something" Nanoha finally said. "Though I honestly had no idea that having a large amount of it untapped could interfere with the ability to channel magic, I already knew about _ki _– or chakra, as it's also known – before all this happened. You see, my father's sword style uses _ki _to enhance _taijutsu _and _kenjutsu_, and advanced practitioners can pull off techniques somewhat similar to the _Shinmei-Ryū _shown in the Vetus universe you & your team went to. Although my discovery of magic led me to neglect that path, I did learn basic _ki _manipulation, mostly for physical enhancement. And after viewing that data 10 days ago, I started revisiting that rarely-used skill of mine. Having 'felt' it during the footage, I was able to puzzle out a few basic techniques…"

Nanoha took a stance… and started weaving hand-seals and building up ki/chakra.

'No way…' Teana thought, eyes wide. 'She can't be…'

"_Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu_!"

And the fireball raced out.

'She is!'

It wasn't quite to the level of size and power as Teana's own, or that of either of her cousins or Kakashi-san, but it still came as quite a shock – so much so that Teana barely managed to regain her composure in time to activate her_ Mangekyō_ and cast _Kamui_, causing the fireball to stop moving less than five feet from her and collapse in on itself as it was ejected from normal space-time. She returned her eyes to their base _Sharingan _state and let out a quiet sigh of relief.

"How did you manage to reproduce that just by observation?-!" Teana questioned.

"I've always been good at learning things that way" Nanoha replied. "Ask Yūno-kun; he'll tell you the same."

"…Well, you've made the mistake of choosing to show it off rather than catch me with it when I was helpless to react. And I won't give the chance to correct that mistake! _Katon: Chō Ryūka no Jutsu_!"

With that, Teana launched four large dragon's-heads of fire, shooting through the air toward Takamachi. Nanoha forced one to disperse with a precision Accel Shooter shot, and tanked the second and third with her shields, only for Teana to fly through the fourth, the _Rasengan _in her hand 'absorbing' some of it and becoming wreathed in flames. She thrusted it forward, and it detonated with an explosive fire/concussion combination that pushed Nanoha back and singed her Barrier Jacket, the older girl letting out a cry of alarm and pain. Teana followed up with a barrage of Fire-type _Sagitta Magica_, Nanoha being obscured by the resulting smoke from the impacts. Teana floated backward, waiting several seconds to see how much she'd have to throw out next. Suddenly, from within the cloud she heard Nanoha's voice, strong as ever and heralding something a little bigger than what she'd thrown at Teana so far.

"Divine…"

'Uh-oh'

"Buster!-!"

The bright pink beam of energy instantly scattered the smoke cloud as it raced downward toward Teana, who crossed her arms in front of her, reinforced her body with defensive magic & chakra, and Cross Mirage projected a shield spell. Teana strained against the beam for several seconds, before being apparently engulfed and pushed downward, hitting the ground 100 feet below and kicking up a cloud of dust and dirt. After several seconds, a blazing aura erupted, and Teana shot back upwards into the sky. She was panting lightly, her Barrier Jacket displaying some damage, and she looked madder than ever. Nanoha was in a similar physical condition due to Teana's most recent attacks, though her expression remained calm and focused.

Teana brought her dual Mirage Longswords to bear and charged in again, dodging or swatting aside the Accel Shots that Nanoha sent her way. Another close-in duel began, this time supplemented by the two warriors firing sporadic Accel Shots and Crossfire Shots at each other as they clashed weapons. After a while of this, they broke apart, getting distance. Teana attacked with _Fūton: Daitoppa_, the wave of destructive Wind chakra battering at Nanoha as she braced herself against it. The second the gale died down, Nanoha quickly shielded to stop a Spartan-strength punch that would've been instantly fatal to a normal human. Teana followed through with several more strikes that quickly wore down Nanoha's shield, forcing the brunette into a close-combat brawl that Nanoha soon found herself hard-pressed to defend herself in.

Raising Heart: "Jacket Purge"

Teana was sent flying back as Nanoha's Barrier Jacket converted into mana and exploded outward, quickly reforming afterward. Nanoha quickly followed up with another Accel Shooter barrage, the spheres of magic all hitting the stunned Teana. Nanoha then fired a converged blast at her… and when it hit, Teana vanished, leaving a human-sized boulder in her place.

'_Kawarimi no Jutsu_?'

Nanoha looked around frantically, trying to finds where her wayward student had gone. After several seconds, she suddenly reacted to Raising Heart's warning, spinning around and throwing a shield up just in time to block Teana's Forsaken Buster. The redhead put more power into it, and soon Nanoha's shield gave way, subjecting her to the onslaught. When the attack faded, she held a hand to her midsection, panting for breath; Teana looked to be in much the same condition.

Then, Teana focused on Nanoha while keeping her right eye closed. Feeling instinctual panic as she remembered the footage, Nanoha immediately flash-stepped to the side. As she expected, there was a burst of black flame that shot through where she'd been hovering a half-second earlier. She continued to flash about, narrowly avoiding several more bursts of _Amaterasu_. Teana stopped after about seven, feeling the drain on her chakra, and Nanoha saw the very tip of her own right pigtail burning with black flames; she quickly severed the last three inches of that part of her hair, watching as the black hellfire consumed it as it drifted down toward the ground.

Teana called forth a Shadow Clone who charged at Nanoha, engaging her in another swords-versus-staff battle. As she fought the duplication of Teana, she heard the original incanting something:

"_Omne Flammans Flamma Purgatus, Domine Extinctionis Et Signum Regenerationis, In Mea Manu Ens Inimicum Edat_…"

Nanoha landed a lucky blow that dispelled the Shadow Clone, just as the real Teana's _Flagrantia Rubicans _was set loose. The wave of fire was countered by a quick, half-second-long Divine Buster (a "Divine Burst") that exploded against it, destabilizing both attacks. Teana then flew through the smoke cloud, Mirage Longsword readied, only to stop mid-charge and send out a _Fūton: Shinkūha_, Nanoha being caught off-guard and forced to call up a very quick shield that only partially mitigated the damage, leaving a bloody surface cut across her stomach. The two girls flew back away from each other, each being surrounded by a very large number of magic spheres glowing with their respective colors:

"Accel Shooter: Storm Shift!"

"Crossfire Shot: Macross Shift!"

The two equally large barrages of magical bolts raced toward each other, colliding with a cavalcade of detonations that lit up the sky like fireworks, only a small fraction getting past each other to hit their intended targets. Before the noise of the blasts had faded away, the two charged each other again, another duel breaking out. They broke apart and then quickly rushed in again, and soon were in a high-speed jousting match, flying about surrounded by their auras, crashing against each other again and again while also blasting each other with magical attacks. Neither of them paid any mind to the hits they were taking, simply fighting through & ignoring the pain and continuing the fight. They brawled for a few more minutes, neither of them using any big techniques, just hammering away at each other. They broke apart, and yet another exchange of energy-bolt waves was made, Crossfire and Accel blasts impacting each other.

For the next half an hour, this continued much the same way – brawls, sword-fights, exchanges of spell-bolt barrages, and neither of them giving the other the chance to charge up anything big. No words were said other than incantations and calling of attacks.

Now, the two hovered around 100 meters away from each other, still staring each other down. Both showed significant fatigue, their Barrier Jackets were ripped & torn in several places, and wounds covered their bodies. Bones ached, stamina was low, and both knew that it was time to put an end to this. They both began to gather power, drawing from the massive abundance of loose mana that now permeated the air around them. Two glowing spheres of energy – one pink the other reddish-orange – converge in front of their casters, growing by the second.

"Full Power!"

"Maximum Destruction!"

"Starlight…"

"Stars' Death…"

Two pinpoints of light, visible clear over in Cranagan, were about to be unleashed.

"BREAKER!-!-!"

"CANNON!-!-!"

Two utterly _massive _beams of energy surge toward each other, meeting halfway. The ground far below trembles and cracks from the force of the two beams impacting, pushing against each other in a desperate struggle for supremacy. Both girls strained as they tried to overpower each other, pushing more mana into their attacks. They put everything they had into it, neither girl willing to lose, no matter the cost.

Suddenly, something wholly unexpected happened. Nanoha's Starlight Breaker punched clean down the middle of Teana's Stars' Death Cannon, parting it like a river as it shot toward Teana. …But Teana's now-split-in-two blast kept going as well, surging toward Nanoha. Both girls could only widen their eyes in shock and try to protect themselves with magical reinforcement as the lights grew brighter. Two tremendous explosions of magical energy lit up the sky for miles around. After several seconds, two figures could be seen plummeting down, out of the smoke and toward the ground. As they got close, they both pulled up, slowing their descent and landing on their feet, about 30 feet away from each other.

Nanoha's hair had come loose, and the outer layer of her Barrier Jacket was gone, as was Teana's, with what was left ripped & torn nearly everywhere. Both girls were barely on their feet, gasping for breath, staring each other down still. Their bodies were rickety and unsteady, and they were pretty much out of usable chakra and mana. They communicated without speaking, as their weary muscles tightened for one last act.

At the same time, they took off, running toward each other. Fists cocked back, a dual wordless battle-cry crescendo issuing forth as they neared. They got in range, and struck out. Nanoha's fist impacted Teana's face at the same time and with the same amount of force as Teana's hit hers. The two girls were sent flying back, landing about 10 feet away from each other. They struggled to lift their heads, but then as one they fell back, unconscious and completely exhausted.

The fight was a draw.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Riot Force 6 Headquarters – Medical Wing**

**Several Hours Later**

Teana's eyes opened slowly, the faint sound of a heart monitor nearby and an off-white ceiling above her head. She quickly surmised that she was in HQ's medbay. Before she could process anything further, the door opened, and in walked Shamal.

"Oh, you're finally awake?" the blonde doctor queried. "It's around 4:30 in the afternoon; you've been out for quite a while. You and Nanoha-san really beat each other senseless this morning. Fortunately, Chrono-kun was able to convince the higher-ups that it was just a training spar. …A really, really intense training spar."

"…I won?" Teana asked when she found her voice. "I don't remember the end."

"You and Nanoha-san exhausted pretty much all of your energy. After rearranging the landscape and scaring half of Cranagan, you both ended up ground-bound, not even enough energy left to fly. You ended up knocking each other unconscious – charged toward each other, met in the middle, and KO-ed each other simultaneously, according to your Devices. Nobody won. Nanoha's presently three rooms over, in pretty much the same condition as you are right now."

Teana closed her eyes and leaned her head back as this registered. All this time, all the training, and the best she could do against Takamachi was break even. She felt the frustration building within her again.

"While you're here and in no condition to tune anyone out," Shamal said, interrupting Teana's contemplating, "I believe it's time I showed & told you about something."

"And what would that 'something' be?" Teana asked, her tone slightly acidic.

Shamal's expression became deadly serious. "The event that laid the foundation for Nanoha's current training methods. The time when, seven years ago, Nanoha's foolish recklessness almost got her killed."

Now Teana was listening attentively. Shamal took a deep breath.

"During the Jewel Seed Incident, Nanoha discovered her Device's VR training program. This allowed her to train every moment of every day, awake or asleep, while going about her daily life. This is how she became so powerful so quickly. But it also put strain on her body and Linker Core, strain that gradually accumulated. When she combined the constant VR training with actual, physical training, and the application of the magical equivalent of training weights, the strain became more. For a while, it was no problem. She seemed to be doing just fine. …But… When she was 12, something unexpected yet inevitable happened: during a mission, her body gave way under the built-up strain, and her magic failed her at the worst possible moment."

"…What happened?" Teana said with genuine curiosity.

Shamal's expression hardened. "This."

Teana had to stifle a gasp at the image that was projected on a holo-screen: young Nanoha, with an odd war-droid's spiky limb driven completely through her lower torso.

"The physical trauma was bad enough" Shamal continued. "Her liver and one of her kidneys were damaged, so she lost a lot of blood. But what made it much, much worse was the Linker Core Hemorrhage that happened simultaneously with the impalement. Her nervous system took a bad hit, and her other vital systems were damaged as well."

The image switched to young Nanoha, in a hospital bed, her torso wrapped in bandages.

"It was six months before she could walk again, 10 months before she regained full control of… certain functions, and around a year and a half before she could reliably fly again. The agony and suffering she underwent – both physical and psychological – changed something in her - scarred her, in a way. Faced with the possibility of never even being able to walk again – much less perform any magic – was a deeply sobering thought. Of course, being the unstoppably determined girl she was, she managed to claw her way back up to full health. …Well, mostly. She's actually never fully, 100% recovered from the damage she took that day; her total magic capacity is around 85% of what it could have been had the incident never happened, her lower back is constantly a little stiff, she can't fire off top-level attacks with the ease that she used to, and… if her Core were to ever suffer an incident like that again, I can say with utmost certainty that Nanoha would not survive the experience."

Teana was silent as she contemplated all this.

"_That _is why Nanoha developed the training regimen that she made you and the others follow: so none of you would push yourselves past the breaking point and end up like she did… or worse. There was no conspiracy against you, Teana. She was trying to protect you from yourself, so you didn't up crippled or dead. You were fast approaching a physical breakdown of your own from the dangerously intense training you subjected yourself to after Hotel Augusta. …Before the Incidents, she told me how that, though she tried so hard not to play favorites, you were her best student. She knew you would become a great mage. She was just trying to make sure you survived long enough to. And also, she honestly did not know that you had _any _notable amount of chakra, or that having too much chakra untrained could cause what it did in you. Hell, before we got the data and Nanoha explained to me, I didn't even know chakra _existed_, nor did most of us.

"My point is… Nanoha cares for you, enough that she risked you hating her if it meant your safety. She put so much effort into making sure that you and Subaru and Erio and Caro could become strong, capable mages without putting yourself at the risks she faced and almost fell to. And… though it was certainly not the way she had intended or envisioned… seeing you now, knowing how powerful you've become, how sure of yourself, how skilled at leadership and tactics, how close you are with your team… You've exceeded her loftiest hopes. She's told me that she is more proud of you than she could've ever possibly imagined."

Teana was quiet for several seconds, eyes closed to hide the myriad emotions that she was experiencing. She hated to admit it, but… everything made complete sense. Her previous assumptions and acts, and those of Nanoha, looked… different in hindsight. One thing had changed in Teana over the course of her travels: she was not mature enough to admit that she had been at least partially in the wrong. Though, there was now a new thing she disagreed with Takamachi on:

"She screwed up training-wise," Teana said, "both for herself and with us. Pushing herself so hard like she did back then? That's stupidly dangerous. People get killed doing that. She was right to tone it down after that. But… she went too far in the other direction. She's so scared of such a catastrophe repeating that she treats her trainees with kid gloves. She refuses to push them anywhere close to their real limits. She limits and slows their growth. Look at how much progress Gamma Team has made! The training method I use – the one that the Spartans taught me and Konoha's shinobi helped me refine – has worked wonders for them. Push a person to the very knife's edge of their limits, as far as they can safely go… but not one step beyond that line, under any circumstances. …Takamachi went from being too far over the line to being terrified of getting anywhere near it."

"In all fairness," Shamal replied, "it takes a special kind of trainer to be able to not only tell where each trainee's line is and help them get right up to it without crossing it, but to be able to teach each trainee to spot their own limit and how to balance on it without crossing over. …Nanoha doesn't think she could do that."

"…Then I'll help her. I'll teach her how. And I'll teach the Forwards how to, as well. Me and my team will step in and provide assistance, guidance."

"You'd help Nanoha? But… you've spent the last year wanting to kill her."

"I have. And… I was wrong to. Don't get me wrong – I still disagree with some of her moral principles, her methods, her views, but… I… I don't hate her. Not anymore. I understand why she did what she did. I don't fully agree with it, but I understand it. And I'm… willing to make peace."

Shamal watched in amazement as Teana closed her eyes again, still in that same position she'd woken up in. The reckless, impatient girl who'd once been in her place…

"You've grown so much, Tia" Shamal said. "Maybe you leaving us and going on your journey was the right thing, after all."

"Duh" Teana replied with a tiny smirk. She then started to stretch her body out… and stopped, her eyes shooting open. She moved her legs around a little, and then ran her hands over her hips and crotch area… or rather, what she was clad in over them. Eyes wide and a light blush on her face, she turned to Shamal, who'd quickly figured out the reason.

"Am I in a… W-Why am I wearing a…"

"Hospital policy" Shamal replied with a closed-eyes grin. "For boys under 15 and girls under 18. And yes, you'll be using them, thanks to a nifty little spell they're enchanted with."

Teana's face flushed as it hit home.

"Don't worry, dear" Shamal said in a soft, motherly tone as she gently ran her hand across Teana's forehead. "I'll take very good care of you for the four days you'll be here."

"F-Four days?" the increasingly embarrassed teen squeaked out.

"Well, you do have a fair amount of chakra exhaustion, mana depletion, and some physical wounds. Don't get worked up about it, Tia. You've spent so much time being a responsible adult, taking so much weight onto your shoulders, not letting yourself relax; being babied for a few days might do you some good. Stress relief, maybe." She giggled. "Plus, you look so adorable in them."

Teana was about to voice a protest, but then bit back a sudden squeak as a new sensation made itself know. Her face now as red as her hair, she looked silently, imploringly to Shamal, who quickly figured out what the issue was.

"Okay, dear. Let me just get the supplies out of this cabinet and we'll get you changed."

As the sheets were yanked down, exposing the source of her mortification to plain sight, Teana tried to figure out how she always ended up in the craziest situations.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Five Days Later**

Right now, Teana prepared herself for one of the most difficult things she'd ever do. She stood in front of the door, gathering her thoughts. She'd spent the past few days trying to work out exactly what to say and how (while not being tended to and cared for by the motherly Shamal, which she had to agree was not altogether unpleasant; also, she had a bit more understanding of how Erika felt now). Now, she took a deep breath, and knocked on the door.

"Coming~" the voice on the other side said in a sing-song tone. The door opened.

"Hello, who is…" Nanoha's expression changed quickly to surprise and something else Lanstar couldn't quite identify. "Teana…"

"Takamachi…" Teana replied; Nanoha noticed that the sharpness and vitriol she'd been saying it with before was no longer present. "May I… come in? There's something I need to discuss with you; something I need to say."

"…O-Of course" Nanoha said when she finally found her voice. "Come in, please."

Teana looked around. "Rather spacious, isn't it?" she said. "Bigger than my quarters on the _Starshot_."

"You get used to it" Nanoha replied. "Can I get you anything?"

"No. I'm fine."

Teana took a seat on the recliner. Nanoha seated herself in the couch across from it. For about a minute, neither of them said anything. Then, Teana spoke.

"Shamal-san told me" she said. "About how you pushed yourself as a kid… and how it almost cost you your life."

Nanoha winced almost-imperceptibly. "S-She did, did she?"

"Yeah… That was an incredibly dangerous path. You were right to tone it down. Though honestly, Takamachi-san, you took it too far in the opposite direction. You're so scared of accidentally going over that limit and ending up with people hurt, that you won't go anywhere _near _the limit. And that limits growth. If you don't push yourself close to your limits, you'll barely get anywhere. I know that Marie told you how I train people, how I bring them as close to their limits as possible without going over them. And you've seen the results. If you had used that method, this whole mess might not have happened."

"I…" Nanoha said. "I know. I know that. But… I'm scared. I don't think… I don't know how to make sure someone avoids crossing their limits while straying that close to them. I'm scared of what might happen to my trainees if I… if I screw up. I can't do it."

"…That's why I'm going to teach you."

Nanoha looked shocked. "Huh?"

"My team and I will help you learn how to properly use and apply my method, both to yourself and to those you train. We'll also teach the other Instructors about it, and the Forwards. We'll _all _be able to become stronger, without risking our lives _and _without hanging so far back from the limit that we can barely see it and develop at a snail's pace. I… I owe it to you…"

"Teana…"

The redhead walked up, sitting right next to Nanoha and looking her in the eyes. Nanoha could tell the younger girl was fighting as hard as she could to do whatever was coming next.

"I…" Teana managed to whisper out, clearing her throat afterward. "I'm… I'm sorry, Nanoha-san."

Nanoha felt her heart leap up into her throat at those few words. She watched as Teana closed her eyes and took a slow, deep breath.

"I am sorry, Nanoha-san. You made mistakes in your training methods, and in how you dealt with my issues, but… I made mistakes, incorrect assumptions… I suspected you of being out to harm me, when in fact you were trying to _protect _me. And while I don't regret setting out on my journeys, all the things I've seen, done, and learned… I regret being so… awful to you. I'm sorry for all the worry and heartache I've caused you. You didn't deserve that. And… I am willing to mend ties with you."

She extended her hand, anticipating a shake. Nanoha slowly reached out and grasped Teana's hand… and then pulled her into a hug, wrapping her arms around the surprised girl.

"Thank you…" she whispered.

Soon, Teana found herself relaxing into and returning the embrace. This felt… right. She felt as a great weight, one she hadn't known was there, departed from her. She let a small, content smile form on her face as Nanoha held her closer, the older girl shedding a few silent tears of joy. Teana felt at peace. After nearly a year, the hatred that had gripped her Heart was gone.

**-**_**CHAPTER END**_**-**

NEXT TIME: After a stretch of peace, the enemy makes their move.


	4. The Snake Strikes

This one starts off slow & sweet, and then BOOM! Seriousness!

The minor wait was partly due to a little writer's block, partly because I have recently acquired _Pokémon White Version 2_, and partly due to the dramarama caused by my ATM card being stolen, which I only discovered _after _someone had gone on a $250 shopping spree with it.

SEE FIRST CHAPTER FOR DISCLAIMERS

PLEASE READ & REVIEW, AND TEND TO THE TROPE PAGE

**-**_**CHAPTER START**_**-**

**Four Weeks After Nanoha & Teana's Reconciliation**

**7:30 AM**

Teana slowly opened her eyes, waking up in a soft, warm, and very comfortable position. She took a slow, deep breath and relaxed, eyes closing as she recalled the highlights of the past month.

Teana's training method – well, actually the Spartans', also used by some shinobi – had been introduced to Hayate, the Instructors, and the Forwards, and the past few weeks had already seen the beginnings of noticeable change. They had all already learned what their elemental affinities were (well, it had already been obvious what Fate's, Signum's, and Erio's were), and had started the basics of chakra manipulation and the Vetus system of magic. Nanoha had taken to chakra manipulation like a duck to water, helped along by her prior knowledge; she already had a decent list of _jutsu_, and word had it that she'd recently forged a Summoning Contract (though with what type of summon, Teana did not yet know). Also, it turned out the Nanoha's chakra reserves were almost as big as Teana's (and her basic training with its manipulation courtesy of her family's style had prevented it from interfering with her ability to channel mana, unlike Teana). Hayate was making a point of learning small-scale spells and jutsu so she had something other than "tactical nuke" in terms of attacks.

Gamma Team and the _Starshot_'s passengers did some training as well. Nanoha, Fate, Signum, and Vita were able to help the girls of Gamma iron out a few kinks and learn a couple new moves, while the people Gamma had picked up in the last three worlds kicked their training up (in particular, Asa, Keiichi, Satoshi, and Erika & Timmy were putting the most time & effort into getting stronger and more skilled).

Mai and Shamal got along really well with each other, as did Sarah & Vita, Sarah & Fate, Marie & Subaru, Kaede & Fate, and Signum & Erohn. Vivio had become very close with Erika, who in turn loved doting on and playing with her new surrogate little-sister figure, becoming rather attached to the little 5-year-old. Chen S'Yar was already in talks with the Bureau about setting up a trade system between the TSAB and the Sangheili- and neutral-allied Kig-Yar clans, though it would require the word of the clan patriarchs & matriarchs to make it official. The Sangheili and the Protoss, tall and imposing as they were, made quite the sight wherever they showed up, but the locals were slowly getting used to them. And the Huragok, with their unique capabilities, quickly became a welcome sight wherever they showed up.

Teana & Nanoha had continued mending their relationship, and had gotten to the point where, if pressed, Teana would (slightly begrudgingly) refer to Nanoha as a friend again. Subaru, however, was still rather cross with Takamachi, and likely would be for quite some time.

An interesting thing to note about Midchildan society is that, while it's not exactly advertised, and is looked down upon by some stuck-up old folks or immigrants from different-morals colonies, polyamory – having more than one open and long-term lover, with said lovers in some cases also 'being with' each other – was technically legal and generally tolerated (though polygamy – actually _marrying _more than one person – was still a little more of a gray area in most cases). Nanoha, Fate, and Yūno had been "sharing each other" for a few years now, with Fate & Signum occasionally getting together and "working off stress" with Nanoha & Yūno's full knowledge and acceptance (though Signum had yet to accept any of Nanoha's offers to take part in a three- or foursome).

It was this fact that had led to Teana's current position: laying on her side in bed, held close in Subaru's arms, while Marie was pressed close against Teana's back, holding onto her, and Kaede in turn was spooning against Marie, one hand resting on Marie's belly and the other on Teana's side. Teana surmised that right now, Shion, Satoshi, Mai, and Kizuna were probably in the same bed as well, Erika & Timmy were curled up with each other in their shared bed (they hadn't done _that _yet; it was innocent snuggling… though Erika had recently gotten comfortable enough around Timmy to go topless in his presence, so long as nobody else was around), poor Ahsoka was probably clinging to a pillow and missing Negi & Nodoka, and… Huh. Now that she thought about it, she didn't even know what Sarah's sexual orientation was (though Teana suspected her to be bi), much less whether or not she had ever 'gotten with' anyone in her life (supposedly, she once had a boyfriend named Mark whom she offered 'second base' to, only for the horny idiot to try to 'steal home', resulting in the break-up of the relationship); she'd been hanging out with both Ginga and Vice lately, though, which could be support for Teana's theory (or maybe Teana was just seeing things that weren't really there; she just couldn't be sure at the moment).

Suddenly, Teana felt a feather-light kiss on the back of her neck, followed by a shifting of the grip of the now-awake Marie. Teana closed her eyes and leaned back, allowing the other girl to nuzzle the back of her head. When she opened her eyes, it was just in time to catch a now-awake Subaru start to kiss her. The redhead let out a content little moan as Subaru claimed her mouth, feeling Marie's hands on her belly being joined by one of Kaede's hands, slowly moving around, and Teana could feel Kaede's other hand sandwiched between her back and Marie's stomach, doing the same to the latter. After about half a minute, Subaru broke the lip contact, though still held her close. The four girls snuggled closer together.

"Can we stay like this for a bit before we get up?" Kaede asked.

"I don't see why not" Teana replied with a content smile. "Though, as much as I'd love it, we can't stay in bed all day. We've got that function at Bureau Army HQ tonight that we have to attend as security."

"Right" Marie said. "Standing outside in the cold for hours, looking out for trouble in the one-in-thousand chance it'll show up, while the big-wigs and officers have their fancy soiree inside… So I want to enjoy you girls' body warmth as much as I can to offset that."

"And we'll all be in uniform," Subaru said in a pouting tone, "so I won't get to see Tia & Marie in their tuxes… So unfair…"

"Hopefully, we won't have a repeat of the last time we went to a fancy get-together" Teana said, remembering the Governor's Ball in New Ostia, and the three-way clusterfuck it had become.

"I dunno," Marie said, "I actually kinda hope something'll happen. Otherwise it'll be one unbearably boring night. Right, Boss?"

"I guess so" Teana replied. "And Marie… You can… call me Tia, if you want. You too, Kaede."

"Congratulations, you two" Subaru said with a hint of mirth. "You're now part of an exclusive club; Teana has only ever let me, Gin-nee, and her big brother call her Tia."

"And Jorge," Teana added, "because he was like a father to me. And Sarah, because she's my semi-unofficial, not-by-blood cool big sister. And I think I'd be okay with Erika or Erio using it."

"My point remains" the blue-haired girl replied. "It's a rare privilege."

Kaede giggled. "I'll be sure to live up to the honor, Tia."

"As will I" Marie said.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**One Hour Later**

Erio fidgeted lightly as he felt the warm water rushing down his back courtesy of Fate. The motherly blonde and her slightly-younger counterpart Sarah (though Sarah was noticeably more tomboyish, her & Fate were otherwise so alike it was almost unnerving) had dragged him, Caro, Timmy, & Erika all into the same good-sized bathing room to all wash up (and _be _washed up by the doting older girls) at pretty much the same time – "bathtub bonding", Fate called it. To Fate, it was spending time with the two kids she'd taken in and saved from their lonely pasts, along with two of their new friends.

To Erio, it was being naked in the same room as four naked girls and an equally-nude other boy (why that last bit affected Erio, he had no idea). His face was as red as his hair as every time he tried to avert his eyes from one of the girls' beautiful bodies, he ended up looking at another one. Needless to say, he very carefully kept his hands held in his lap to keep his modesty hidden. Timmy looked to be in much the same state, while Erika & Caro looked noticeably shy at the situation as well (though Erio swore he saw Caro give him a bashful smile after catching him looking at her at one point).

At the same time, Fate & Sarah were having a private telepathic conversation of sorts.

'_They seem to have enjoyed this, when it comes down to it_' Fate sent as she helped Caro out of the bathtub.

'_You could say that_' Sarah replied with a little smirk as she began towel-drying Erika off. '_I've caught Caro staring at Erio's butt a couple times. And Timmy's. And Erika's. And I think Erio appreciated the accidental eyeful of your breasts more than he tells himself he did._'

'_Oh dear. Well, these four are starting to reach that age, aren't they?_'

'_It seems so. Anyway, I'm gonna dry Timmy off and then I'll take him & Erika to the dressing room. We'll wait for you three there._'

As the younger blonde got up and walked over to the black-haired boy (her hips swaying slightly as she walked, causing his & Erio's faces to flush as they then averted their eyes), Erika's own mind was wandering.

'This is all s-so embarrassing' the black-haired girl thought, green eyes wide and face a tad red as she looked around the room. 'T-Though it isn't all bad, I guess. …Wow, Erio's body looks so lean and toned and… muscular… Ah! W-What am I thinking?-! Timmy's my number one! With his… soft hands and his smooth tummy with just a hint of muscle under it and his… his… _Wow~_… Gah! W-Why am I staring at _that _part of him?-! Sure, I was gonna see it eventually, but WHAT DID I JUST THINK?-! Okay, okay, look away, look at… Gosh, Caro's cute. And she's got soft-looking lips and such a cute, tight little bu-WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?-!'

And then a hand fell upon her shoulder.

"Eeeeeep!-!"

Sarah's sudden interrupting of her little sister's thoughts caused the girl to practically leap up, hand to her chest.

"S-S-Sarah!" she said, a tad indignantly.

"Sorry, kiddo. Didn't think you were _that _deep in your thoughts. …Must've been a rather interesting train of thought you were riding."

At this, the girl's face went beet-red and she let out a little squeak, unable to form words at the moment. Timmy stood at Sarah's side, wrapped in a towel. Erika stood up… and her towel came undone, falling to the floor. For several seconds, neither kid moved, though their faces went even redder. Then, slowly, Timmy bent over, picked up Erika's towel, and wrapped it around her. Erika squeaked out a barely-audible "Thank you", and the two followed Sarah to the nearby dressing room.

'_Interesting train of thought you were riding… You were riding… Riding…_'

Unbidden and without warning, a _very _risqué handful of mental images popped into Erika's mind, involving her, Timmy, Erio, and Caro doing _things _together. Her blush became positively luminescent, she let out a shuddering gasp, and she then shook her head frantically, trying to shove those thoughts away.

"Something wrong, dear?" Timmy asked, having noticed his girlfriend's sudden distress.

"N-N-No, honey" Erika replied, her voice a nervous squeak. "N-Nothing's wrong, Tim. J-Just a little… u-unsteady after s-standing up after sitting d-down for so long. T-That's it."

"W-Would you like to lean on me? Just in case you, like, lose your balance or something?"

"Sure" she squeaked out, and then, keeping one hand holding her towel in place, she leaned her head on his shoulder as they walked; he put his free arm around her shoulders.

At the same time, back in the bath room, Caro slipped and stumbled backward, only to be caught by Erio… and to feel something as she leaned against him. As she realized what the 'something' was, her face flushed, and she turned her head to look at him, a little smile on her face.

"I'm glad that you're so happy to see me, Erio" she said in a coy tone.

When the boy finally got it a few seconds later, he went beet-red and started stammering apologies; she just giggled in response.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**TSAB Ground Forces Headquarters**

**September 12****th**** (Local Date), 1755 hours**

"Everyone, sitrep" Teana said into the comm.

"_All quiet on the Western front, Boss_" Marie replied.

"_Nothin' from the North_" Shion replied.

"_East is clear_" Kaede reported.

"And the South is clear at the moment, too" Teana said. "Don't worry, girls; just about an hour more of this, and then we can all go back to base."

The girl then let out a sigh, looking up at the dark-red sky, the Sun having just set. She, her team, and the Forwards had been saddled with guard duty, along with a few volunteers from the _Starshot_'s military personnel. The _Starshot _itself, along with Holland, Arum, and most of the vessel's contingent of troops, was off-planet at the moment, over at the TSAB's naval headquarters – a space station about half the size of the _Unyielding Hierophant_, stationed in a dimensional pocket around 700 light-years away. The two officers were talking things out with the "Three Great Admirals" and a handful of other senior-level Bureau personnel.

Teana absent-mindedly stuck her hand into her pocket, feeling the slightly-pointy form of _Schwertkreuz _in inactive form. Security regulations required that Device-bearing mages relinquish their Devices while attending the conference; Teana had Hayate's, Marie had Nanoha's, Erio had Fate's, and Ahsoka had Signum's. Quite frankly, Teana found it stupid; in the UNSC, people carried their sidearms during even the fanciest formal get-togethers, just in case (and such preparation had saved lives more than once).

The girl's ruminations were cut short as she saw movement along the treeline. She brought up her binoculars, and saw several figures walking out toward the facility, the lead one waving a big white flag (well, a white sheet tied to a tree branch). It wasn't long before Teana recognized a few of them from RF6 mission reports.

A few minutes later, the presentation inside was continuing along, when Nanoha, Fate, Signum, & Hayate received a sudden telepathic transmission.

'_Nanoha-san?_' Teana sent. '_We have a bit of a situation out here._'

'_What sort of situation, Teana?_' Fate replied.

'…_Apparently, Jail Scaglietti made 12 Combat Cyborgs in total. I know this, because… You're not gonna believe this… Seven of them are here now, and they've defected from Scaglietti._'

The channel was silent for several seconds.

'_Is this a trap?_' Signum sent. '_A ruse?_'

'_No_' Ahsoka pitched in. '_I've learned how to use the Force to literally tell if someone's lying, and how to sense a person's intent if I'm close enough. The girls are telling the truth._'

'_The one named Cinque says that Scaglietti's crossed some sort of line_' Subaru sent. '_That he's "lost sight of his original goals" and made an alliance with a force who poses a significant threat to every person on this entire planet._'

'…_Anything else?_' Nanoha asked.

'_Unfortunately, yes_' replied Shion. '_Cinque just mentioned that the Doctor and his newfound allies are planning an attack._'

'_An attack?_' Hayate asked, sounding a little worried. '_When? Where?_'

"Warning" a computerized female voice said suddenly over the auditorium speakers. "Hostile forces detected at outer perimeter of Headquarters grounds. Enemy forces outnumber and outgun present defensive forces. Initiating emergency protocols. Sealing exits. All combat personnel prepare to repel attackers. All non-combat personnel, please report to the subterranean safehouses."

'_Here & now, apparently_' Teana replied.

"_This is Rex_" the Clone Captain reported over the comm. channel. "_I've got eyes on a shitload of Gadget Drones, along with… Holy Sith… They've got CIS battle droids! Painted different colors from what the Seps used, but those are definitely the same type of clankers I fought against back in the Clone Wars! And… God, a few of them aren't droids at all. They look like monsters or… demons…_"

"…_It seems that Scaglietti's made a pact with whatever "mysterious foe" Ruin and Kadak represent…_" Teana said over the comm., her tone even, stoic, and all business. "_I'd suggest you four head down below to the RV point; we'll hand off your Devices to you and then we'll all try to push these bastards back before they inflict too many casualties._"

The faint sounds of guns firing could be heard inside the auditorium, the Army HQ's autoguns opening fire as the first targets came in range. Outside, snipers started picking off droids & demons, and _Starshot _personnel scrambled to get to the vehicles they had stationed around. A swarm of droid aircraft – CIS Vultures and Type-2 Gadget Drones – could be seen approaching through the night sky. From the airbase halfway across the city, flight-mages began to lift off and fly out to intercept, followed soon after by UNSC Hornets & gunship-variant Pelicans, Sangheili Banshees & Vampires, and the squadron of Protoss Corsairs that'd joined the _Starshot _in the wake of New Haven.

Fortunately, the summoned demons seemed to nearly all be at "foot soldier / 'mook'" level of power.

"Shion, Kaede, Mai, Sarah, help reinforce the defenses!" Teana ordered. "Marie, Ahsoka, Forwards, with me! Let's get to the RV point and give our heavy hitters their guns!"

"Aye, ma'am!" "Yes, ma'am!" "Right, Boss!"

"Wendi, Nove, Deed, you three and I will go with Lanstar's group!" Cinque said. "Otto, help the green-haired girl! Dieci, stick with the tall blonde! Sein, get inside and make sure the noncombatants get to safety!" She then turned to Teana. "There are still five of my sisters who chose to remain in Jail's service after he made the choice to ally with these… beings… who threaten all creation. Tre & Sette will almost certainly participate in this attack, and Quattro will likely add her electronic warfare abilities to the cause."

"And the other two?" Sarah asked.

"Due's an infiltration expert currently on deep-cover assignment, and Uno's mission control. They won't be an issue in this fight."

"Fair enough" Teana said. "Move it, folks! Go, go, go! The brass ain't payin' us by the hour!"

As everyone moved out, several purple Belkan magic symbols popped up all over the Ground HQ, disgorging Gadget Drones and demon-summons in the midst of the defenders (who, to their credit, rallied quickly). Meanwhile, Vita took to the sky to intercept an incoming S+-level energy signature. She soon encountered a tall, muscular man in a trenchcoat and wielding a halberd.

"Why are you helping Scaglietti if joined forces with literal demons?" Vita growled.

"See those summoning sigils?" the man pointed out at the purple symbols that served as exit points for various droids and summons. "Her name is Lutecia. She's nine years old. She allied with Scaglietti in hopes of finding a way to heal her mother, who is comatose and badly injured in a stasis tank in Jail's base. She does not agree with Jail's recent actions, but she has no choice in the matter, so long as her mother's life hangs in the balance. …It is partially my fault that her mother is in such a state. To atone for that, I will do whatever it takes to protect Lutecia… even if that includes being forced to fight you warriors of the Bureau so she will not have to do so alone."

"So it's a 'fight the good guys or your mom gets it' situation, huh?" Vita replied. "Great. Now I'm gonna have a guilty conscience from having to fight you. Don't think for a second that means I'll hold back, though."

"Good" said a little Unison Device who now sat on the tall man's shoulder. "Enemy or ally, I'm itching for a good scrap! I wanna cut loose and blow shit up! And I won't let this man, who saved me from a fate worse than death, lose!"

"This is Agito" the man introduced his little partner.

"I'm Vita. And this is Reinforce Zwei. We call her Rein."

"I am Zest. And be warned: I cannot afford to hold back against you."

With that, the two rushed at each other, hammer and halberd clashing.

Down below, the defenses were in full swing, and droids & demons were being destroyed by the dozens. The defenders were beginning to take casualties, too, though for the moment they were giving much more than they were taking. Commander Cody was helping coordinate the defense, receiving constant updates on his HUD as he stood in front of the facility's main doors, helping a team of Sangheili gun down anything that got close. Rex and his squad of ODSTs were backing up Kaede (well, technically Rex was in command – an O-3 to Kaede's WO-3), gunning down squads of battle droids. Sarah, Shion, Mai, and Dieci were grouped together and blasting anything within their weapons' ranges, Shion using her arm-device's plasma repeater mode, Sarah a DC-15 blaster rifle, Mai a BR55, and Dieci her massive gun. Otto assisted a group of marines manning light AA guns, adding her Ray Storm attack to the fire being directed at enemy flyers.

Teana's group was soon underground, heading for the rendezvous point. Teana led, Cross Mirage in dual plasma-bolt pistol mode; Wendi brought up the rear, and everyone else moved in-between. Suddenly, they were all forced to take cover in an alcove as a squad of battle droids and gadget drones rounded the corner up ahead. On Teana's signal, a quartet of plasma grenades was drawn and thrown out, destroying all but three droids. Ahsoka rushed in, activating her lightsaber-gauntlet Artifact, and cut the survivors down quickly. Less than a minute later, they finally met up with the Four Aces. They looked a tad uneasy upon sighting the four Combat Cyborgs, but decided to trust them for now.

"How bad is it out there?" Signum asked as Ahsoka handed Levantine to her.

"Fairly bad and getting worse by the second, judging by what's coming over the comms" Teana replied as she passed _Schwertkreuz _to Hayate.

"A distress call was sent to Navy Headquarters" Nanoha said after activating her Barrier Jacket, Raising Heart gripped in her left hand. "Hopefully we'll have heavy support soon."

"Do we have any idea what they're after?" Mai asked as she watched Fate ready herself for battle.

"_Hayate! Signum! Teana! Nanoha! Can anyone hear me?-!_"

"What's wrong, Shamal?" Hayate replied over the telepathy-based comm. channel.

"_Our headquarters is under attack! There's too many of them for me & Zafira to handle! We need help!_"

"_Alert_" a mechanical female voice said over the channel. "_This is TSAB Intelligent Device Serial Number BC0479-5, designate Blitz Caliber. My mistress is presently engaged with two high-level hostiles with advanced cybernetics, estimated threat level S. Requesting immediate assistance._"

"_Hey, can you guys hear me?_" Vita said over the comm. "_I'm up against an enemy mage a couple hundred meters north and up from Army HQ! This guy's a powerhouse – at least S-class! I sure as hell could use some help up here!_"

"Well, this is going to hell quicker than I thought" Teana said. "Out of the frying pan, into the shit."

Hayate's expression turned deadly serious. "Signum, Marie, get out there and help Vita! Nanoha, Teana, Subaru, Mai, get to Ginga! Fate, Erio, Caro, Ahsoka, get to RF6 headquarters and kick those bastards out of our home! I'll go airborne and stay over the Army HQ to provide overwatch and start taking artillery shots at enemy formations! _Go!_"

A chorus of affirmatives answered her.

"Nove, Wendi, go with Testarossa's group" Cinque ordered. "Deed, stick with Yagami as close-in defense. I'll accompany Takamachi and Lanstar."

"We might need some extra muscle" Nanoha said, and she then sliced her thumb along a canine tooth, and then proceeded to form a sequence of hand seals:

"_Kuchiyose no Jutsu_!"

In a puff of smoke, a small toad appeared.

"Oh hey, you're the new girl" the toad said. "What's up?"

"We're under heavy attack" Nanoha replied. "Inform the rest of _Myōbokuzan_'s warriors that they may be needed."

"Right away, ma'am!"

With that, he vanished in another puff of smoke. Teana looked to Nanoha.

"Toads, huh?"

"I did what Jiraiya-san did" Nanoha replied. "Performed the Summoning Technique without a contract, with the intent of appearing at the 'home' of whatever summon group I had an affinity for. Shima-sama and Fukasaku-sama were very understanding, thankfully."

"I guess that may explain where you've been going so often the past week or so?" Fate asked.

"They've been… helping me work on something" Nanoha replied.

"We can flesh out the details later" Teana said. "We've gotta move _now_."

Everyone promptly moved out, heading for their assigned locations at best speed. Group Star (Nanoha, Teana, Subaru, Mai, and Cinque) raced down the winding tunnels, Subaru in the lead. However, when a thick swarm of droids got in their way, Subaru raced right past them, wholly focused on getting to her older sister in time, and leaving the others behind to fight the droids in the process.

"Subaru!" Teana shouted. "Get back here! That's an order!"

"She can't hear us" Nanoha replied as she started blasting Gadget Drones. "She's too far ahead, and these things are jamming our comms. We'll have to hope she doesn't get in over her head before we can catch up."

A few minutes later, Subaru could see a light up ahead – the end of the tunnel… and where Ginga was. She sped up, rolling to a stop inside the cavernous chamber… and saw a tall, purple-haired Number, a slightly-shorter pink-haired one, and Ginga, a bloody mess, limp, being held up by the hair by the taller one, her left hand and forearm lying on the ground several feet away. The two cyborgs looked at Subaru with mild shock and recognition. Subaru stumbled back, in complete shock, her breathing shallow and fast. Tre and Sette saw as the blue-haired girl's eyes shifted from bluish-green to gold… and then to a vibrant blue, the pupils becoming slits. Fangs were bared a split-second before she let out a scream… that was accompanied by a monstrous roar from seemingly everywhere & nowhere, a massive wave of violent chakra and terrifying, inhuman Killing Intent surging out, forcing Tre & Sette to shield their eyes.

Fighting through another pack of droids, Teana & Mai felt the sudden pulse of powerful, dark, and terrifyingly familiar chakra. They remembered, with horror, what Kakashi had told them he'd discovered shortly after Shion's 'awakening':

The Five-Tailed Tiger was not the only "extra" Tailed Beast.

Tre & Sette looked at the girl who was now hunched over before them, a surging blue aura enveloping her. They felt shock as an image appeared, towering over them: a massive, blue- and black-furred wolf, with glowing blue eyes and seven long, thin tails fanned out behind it, hand-like claws bared and reaching out at them.

"…b**ac**k…"

Subaru's muttering drew their attention. Then, she slowly raised her head to look at them. Her eyes glowed with a faint blue glow, her canine teeth had elongated and sharpened, and her hair was spiked out. The ever-present Killing Intent intensified, as she spoke in a coarse, low, hatred-filled tone:

"Gi**ve**… _**he**__r__**…**__**BA**__C__**K!-!-!**_"

She then launched herself at them, the pavement shattering from where she'd kicked off. Tre barely reacted in time to catch the punch, and she felt some of her arm's internal components fracture from the force. The look of pure, all-consuming rage on the blue-haired girl's face was enough to make the consummate professional cyborg-soldier feel a twinge of fear. Tre lashed out with a kick, but Subaru paid little mind as it only shoved her back a few feet. Sette threw her Slaughter Arms, only for a chakra-charged roar to deflect them and knock both cyborgs off their feet.

"Sette!" Tre shouted. "Get the package out of here! I'll hold her off as long as I can!"

"But sister!" Sette replied. "You can't h-"

"_Now_, Sette!-!"

"Y-Yes, ma'am."

As the pink-haired cyborg stuffed Ginga's battered body into a carrying case of sorts, Subaru rushed them again, only for Tre to activate her Ride Impulse and blitz in with a counterattack from the side that sent the newly-awakened _Jinchūriki _into the wall. As soon as Sette took off, beginning her hasty flight out of the area, a shockwave accompanied Subaru emerging from the debris, now shrouded in a semi-solid cloak of hot blue chakra, a single transparent tail swishing up & down. She let out a feral growl as she slowly stalked toward Tre… and then blurred into motion. Tre barely reacted in time to block her attack, and then kicked her Inherent Skill into overdrive, blitzing about the room and striking at Subaru… who was barely fazed by the repeated attacks. Eventually, Tre came out of a flash-step right in front of Subaru… and could not get out of the way as a rising punch hit.

As the rest of Group Star neared the chamber, they heard and felt the sudden explosion. They raced in, to see a fresh new hole in the roof, the night sky visible through it; whatever it was had blasted through 10 feet of concrete to reach the surface above. Teana & Nanoha flew upward through the hole, Mai making a chakra-powered leap up soon after with Cinque being carried on her back. They looked as a tall figure with energy wings/blades positioned near her forearms and lower legs tried desperately to push back a figure enshrouded in a blue, bestial-shaped cloak of chakra.

"I think we found the 7-Tailed Wolf's host…" Mai remarked. "Hey… Where's Ginga?"

"I believe the answer to that question, along with the fact that I see Tre but no Sette, may be why Nakajima-san has… become that" Cinque replied.

"Subaru…" Teana murmured, eyes wide.

"Should… Should we help her?" Mai asked.

"I think Tre's the one who's in need of serious help right now" Cinque said, a sad look in her one eye. "And… I won't be giving it. I'm sad to say it, but… she made her bed when she chose to side with Jail in this; now she has to lie in it."

Tre very quickly figured out that she was on the losing end of this fight. The younger Type-0 lacked her speed (if only by a little), but made up for it in strength, durability, and bloodlust. Tre narrowly dodged a large claw of chakra that shot toward her, and then flew in to deliver the strongest blow she could muster, which sent Subaru tumbling into a pile of debris. Gasping for breath, aching all over, exhausted, and covered in wounds, Tre prepared to make her escape. …And then Subaru launched out from the dust cloud, only now she had two chakra tails instead of one. Before Tre could react she was hammered several times by devastatingly powerful blows that wrecked her internal augmentations along with several organs. Time seemed to flow in slow-motion as the final blow – a fully-charged Vibration Shatter boosted by the _Shichibi_'s power – came in at her.

'I can only hope that Sette made it out' were Tre's final thoughts.

There was a massive explosion of power that the spectators had to brace themselves against. After about 20 seconds, a lone figure staggered out of the dust cloud: Subaru, her aura wavering, her feet unsteady, and a few of her internal components exposed. She took a few steps forward, and then collapsed to the ground, unconscious and totally spent. Mai immediately rushed over to her.

"She's done for tonight" Mai said after examining her. "We need to get her to a medical facility. …A few of her augmentations are irreparably damaged, too; they'll need to be replaced."

Cinque walked a few paces away, and her heart sank a little as she laid eyes on the wrecked, mangled body of her older 'sister'.

"I'm sorry, Tre…" she whispered.

As Teana gingerly picked Subaru up, carrying her bridal style, a barrage of enemy explosive mortar rounds was suddenly visible incoming, with no time to evade or shoot down.

"_Kuchiyose no Jutsu_!"

A massive burst of 'smoke' sprang up, and the barrage detonated harmlessly against a huge shield.

"I'm thankful you were able to come so quickly, Gamaken-san" Nanoha said.

"I AIM TO PLEASE" replied the deep, booming voice of the massive dark-red toad warrior, round shield in one hand and _sasumata _in the other. Everyone was presently perched atop his head.

"We need to drop Subaru off at the medical shelter," Nanoha said, "and then you & I are going to try and put a dent in the enemy's numbers."

"UNGRACEFUL AS I AM, I WILL TRY MY HARDEST."

The massive summon then made a gigantic leap, beginning to bound across the city, following Nanoha's direction to the medical tents set up in the evac zone.

Caro stood, feeling utterly helpless, as she watched Lutecia, Garyu, and Quattro zooming off into the night sky with their sleeping cargo. She looked around – Erio, unconscious and battered; Erika, struggling to pull herself up to her feet without putting any weight on her left arm; Friedrich, splayed out on the ground near the cracked & chipped form of Erio's Device. She looked up, spotting the veritable armada of ground-attack aircraft approaching.

"Why…" she murmured, tears running down her face. "How did it… come to this? This can't…"

A Midchildan summoning sigil, glowing bright pink, sprang to life beneath Caro's feet.

"I won't… let this happen anymore…"

A second, far larger sigil appeared behind her.

"Dragon Lord Summoning…"

The bombers began to draw near.

"Come forth… _VOLTAIRE_!-!-!"

A truly gigantic being rose up from the larger sigil, standing taller than even the largest of the shinobi-world's summons. Eyes glowed gold with power, a spiked tail stretched out, and four massive wings unfurled.

"You will not…"

Power began to gather at the titan's command.

"…_destroy_…"

And the titan roared.

"…_OUR HOME!-!_"

The devastating waves of raw magical power and fire surged outward, vaporizing dozens upon dozens of the approaching flyers. Seconds later, space-time warped in the sky above the city, as the _Starshot _emerged from slipspace. Immediately, nearly every point-defense gun on the warship came to life, opening fire on air and ground assets, as scores of dropships and fighters emerged from the vessel's hangars.

The attacking droid forces' numbers began to plummet as the tide was thoroughly turned against them. Within 10 minutes, the enemy was in full retreat. But the damage had been done. The enemy had devastated Cranagan, and had gotten what they came for. When the last droid fell, the people began the long, painful process of tending to the wounded, counting the dead, and trying to pick up the pieces.

Outside the burning form of RF6's headquarters, Nanoha fell to her knees as a badly-wounded Shario informed her of the enemy's success: Vivio was gone.

**-**_**CHAPTER END**_**-**

NEXT TIME: Even more complications arise.


	5. Turmoil

SEE FIRST CHAPTER FOR DISCLAIMERS

PLEASE READ & REVIEW, AND TEND TO THE TROPE PAGE

**-**_**CHAPTER START**_**-**

**September 13****th**** (local date)**

**10:00 AM**

The mood was somber pretty much everywhere you went. The fatality count was 108 total: 18 civilians, 34 TSAB personnel, and 56 _Starshot _personnel (18 UNSC, 16 Sangheili Alliance, 4 Protoss, 6 Raynor's Raiders, and 12 Phoenix League). Hundreds more were wounded to varying degrees, 92 of them such that they'd be unable to take part in combat for at least a month. Nanoha was trying her hardest to be strong, but the fact that the little girl she'd come to love as a daughter had been kidnapped, with God-knows-what in store for her, ate at her such that she was unable to focus on assisting the clean-up. Erika, who'd come to care for Vivio like a little sister, was in no better state, overcome with guilt for not being strong enough to fight off the kidnappers; Cinque tried to reassure her that she was lucky to come out alive from a fight against Quattro & Garyu. At least Mai had been able to heal Erika's arm (the bone had only received a hairline fracture, and the muscle damage was easily patched up by medical ninjutsu). Timmy had not left her side for even a minute since finding her after the battle, doing his damndest to keep his girlfriend from completely breaking down.

The seven ex-Numbers were doing everything they could to help. Cinque, being the girls' semi-unofficial leader, had quickly told the Bureau higher-ups, Holland, & Arum as much as she could. Apparently, a mysterious dark figure had come to Jail about two weeks earlier, offering him assistance and slowly tempting & twisting him with promises of power and other subtle things, eventually leading to Scaglietti officially throwing his lot in with the mysterious demonic entities. Uno & Tre had stayed on out of loyalty to Jail, and Due & Quattro were sadistic enough that they quite happily stayed aboard, but the rest of the girls had seen these monsters for what they were: a threat to every living thing on Midchilda. They had promptly gathered together and quietly jumped ship, making their way to Cranagan… though not in time to provide sufficient advance warning of the incoming attack.

Subaru was presently aboard the _Starshot_, recovering in the medical wing; she was projected to be combat-ready (partly due to the comparative lack of severity of her injuries, and partly due to the 7-Tails' "mild" healing factor), merely being kept for observation until mid-afternoon. The doctors & medics had done their best to patch her up, though they'd had to replace several irreparably-damaged components of her cybernetics, either torn up by the battle or overloaded by the _Shichibi_'s chakra, with their own tech. Thankfully, the cybernetics technology of the UNSC and the PLF were leagues ahead of Midchilda's and Jail's, meaning that Subaru's augmentations were now more "up-to-date" by UNSC standards, which would likely result in a small but noticeable increase in related abilities. Specialists had done some digging, and discovered that the _Shichibi__ no Ōkami _had been sealed inside Subaru as a small child, back when she and Ginga were "created", before Quint & Genya Nakajima had found them.

The loss of Ginga to the enemy weighed heavily on Subaru, leaving her depressed and quiet. When Teana had gotten leave from the groundside investigations to come up and check on her, a single hug had resulted in the floodgates bursting, and Teana held her girlfriend as she released all her built-up tension, worry, regret, and sorrow. Marie, Kaede, and Sarah had arrived soon after, offering their presence and companionship.

Everyone else was presently being treated for their injuries as well, and most were already up & about again, though Vice and Zafira would likely be out of action for at least a week.

The _Starshot _still hovered over the city, ferrying people & supplies between the ship and the surface, contributing personnel to help the wounded, put out fires, serve as security, and provide & coordinate relief, and serving as a command-and-control center in the wake of the significant damage to Army HQ and Riot Force 6 HQ. The ship's scanners were on high alert, constantly on the lookout for any activity from the enemy.

Unfortunately, they got _much _more than they expected.

UNSC spy-drones and Protoss Observers dispatched from the _Starshot _detected something stirring in the forest 200 kilometers northwest of Cranagan. The transmitted video and images showed huge patches of forest being pushed upward and falling aside as something emerged from beneath the earth. At first, everyone thought it was a series of large buildings, a hidden base of some sorts. But as it broke the surface and began to rise into the air, those suspicions were quashed, and not only the Bureau personnel but even the experienced people of the _Starshot _could only stare in awe and fear.

None of them had ever seen a starship that big.

It was blue and yellow, angular, with fin-like protrusions above & beneath its bow and stern, a vaguely triangular profile, blocking out the sun beneath it. The vessel measured 14 kilometers end to end, a titanic behemoth of a warship, bristling with weapon emplacements. Dormant since the end of the Belkan Wars, in turn salvaged & refitted by that civilization from their own precursors, this was the last surviving Al Hazred _Saint_-class dreadnaught: the _Saint's Cradle_. Repaired and crewed by battle-droids and gadget-drones, the ancient vessel rapidly ascended through the atmosphere, moving much quicker than something that size had any right to.

Jail Scaglietti's broadcast kicked in, the man gleefully ranting about the New World Order he had planned with the promised help of his "new friends". The heroes' attention, however, was more occupied by two other things being shown on the broadcast. The first was Ginga, clad in a Numbers bodysuit and with a dead look in her golden eyes, brainwashed and "reprogrammed". The second was Vivio, hooked up to the ship's central "throne", screaming in terror and agony as the ship drew power from her.

The _Starshot _dared not try to intercept; the dreadnaught was eight-and-three-quarters times the length of the Forerunner destroyer and several more that the mass, and scans suggested its shields could withstand even a full-power shot from the destroyer's particle beam cannon. To make matters worse, a multitude of signatures suddenly popped up in orbit over Midchilda's closest moon: around 30 droid-crewed warships, ranging from 400 to 2,200 meters in length. Several opened fire with ion-cannon bursts on the TSAB ships who tried to bar the _Cradle_'s path, leaving them helpless as the massive vessel ascended past them, leaving Midchilda behind.

"And now I must take my leave" Scaglietti announced. "There are dozens more of these machine-crewed ships where I am headed. But even this mighty fleet is not enough to take on the full might of my myriad enemies. We shall head elsewhere, to gather our strength and consolidate our power. Follow us, if you dare… and if you can even figure out where I'm going in the first place. Until next time, dogs of the Bureau! Ta-ta!"

With that, the 32 ships – including the _Saint's Cradle _– disappeared into warpspace, leaving the Mid System behind. Bureau and _Starshot _personnel immediately began trying to track them, to no avail. The hopelessness of this apparent defeat truly set in; in particular, Nanoha and Subaru went near-catatonic with despair.

They had lost.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Next Day**

The exploration of Scaglietti's old underground base had turned up nothing other than the occasional booby-trap; not a single soul remained inside, one of the stasis tanks – the only occupied one – was missing, Scaglietti having taken it with him, and the computers had been scrubbed of all data. Investigators were combing over the gadget drone foundries, and the Bureau's few on-site psychometrics – three of the TSAB's total eight, psychometry being among the rarest of Rare Skills – were trying to get what little they could, but so far nobody had found anything that could tell where Jail had went.

The _Starshot _and the 18 Bureau ships present in-system were scouring the Mid System for clues, but they'd had no further luck than the ground teams.

Right now, Group Star – currently composed of Nanoha, Teana, Subaru, Yūno, and Marie – combed the forest outside of Jail's old base (well, what parts of it hadn't been upended by the _Saint's Cradle_ emerging). As they searched high & low, one of Nanoha's Area Search Drones was suddenly destroyed. At the same time, Yūno detected a faint pulse of dark power, and was able to collaborate with Raising Heart to pinpoint the location. A minute later, a flash of green accompanied Yūno and the girls teleporting to the site.

"**Ah, Miss Lanstar. I was expecting the person who took down my brother to be a little more… fearsome-looking.**"

The figure standing before them looked almost identical to the one who had possessed Teppei Hōjō back on Shion's Earth – around eight feet tall, bluish-gray flesh, moderate armor, a black longsword, glowing-yellow eyes, dark-red hair in place of the previous demon's black, and six horns instead of the other one's four. Everyone immediately took combat positions. The demon gripped his sword, bringing a large metal shield up in his other hand.

"Why are you here?" Teana growled.

"**Just causing a little trouble. That, and I was stationed to ambush any combat personnel who came to investigate the Doctor's laboratory. I didn't expect to see so many high-level fighters, though. If I can take even one of you down, it will be a decisive blow to your overall threat level.**"

"You assume you'll be able to finish any of us off while fighting us all at once" Yūno said, gathering power.

The demon smirked. "**You assume that any of you will be strong and fast enough to stop me from killing one of you, Mr. Scrya.**"

The five readied themselves, Subaru and Teana stepping forward. The demon looked at Subaru.

"**Ah, the other Type-0, who also happens to be the Host of one of the 10-Tails' spawn. Bringing you in alive should make the Doctor pleased. He's already done such marvelous work with the other one.**"

The response was predictable, as the 7-Tails' chakra – already still close to the surface due to the recent incident – surged to life again, a fiery blue aura surrounding Subaru, who glared at the demon with murderous hatred.

"What have you done to her?-!" she snarled.

"_**I've **_**done nothing. The Doctor has been quite adamant that none of his Cyborgs be… touched… by my people's power unless they specifically ask for it. And Number 13 has not asked for it. Scaglietti has forbidden my people from… taking the initiative in that matter. Most likely he does not fully trust us. …Wise of him. Number 4 has quite gleefully accepted our power, though, as has the Doctor himself. It seems Number 4 is quite the unabashed sadist; truly, she has a demon's heart. Ah, but enough about those not present. It has been far too long since I have had the opportunity to kill.**"

The demon then punctuated the conversation's end by firing off a large barrage of dark magic blasts at Nanoha. They impacted a glowing green shield-spell, dissipating harmlessly against it.

"Just like old times, eh, Nanoha?" Yūno said.

"I hope you haven't gotten rusty holed up in that Library so often" Nanoha replied.

"You and Fate know better than anyone that I keep in shape" he said coyly.

Teana attacked with a wave of Fire-type _Sagitta Magica_, which Nanoha supplemented with Accel Shooter. The demon crouched behind his shield, which projected a shield-spell from it with the metal portion at the center, withstanding the barrage. Subaru rushed in next, Marie close behind her. The blue-haired girl's chakra flared as she entered her 1-Tailed State, and she lashed out with a blow that sent the demon skidding back several feet as he blocked it. Marie fired a charged Light-Beam burst, multiple different-colored blasts of Light magic shooting out at him at once. The demon responded with a wave of Darkness magic that impacted the attack, the two attacks canceling each other out.

A trio of whirling disks, glowing green, came spinning through the air like buzzsaws toward the demon – rune-shields turned on their sides, spun up, and let loose by Yūno. They cut through the shields the demon threw up, forcing him to dodge them; one grazed him, slicing a cut into his arm. He growled and prepared to fire an explosive blast at Yūno, only to be forced to abort the technique to block an attack from Nanoha, which hit his metal shield with such force that a small dent was left in it. The demon then leapt away, barely avoiding a _Katon: Gōkakyū _from Teana. The redhead in question then appeared in front of him, Mirage Longsword in hand, and launched a flurry of strikes that he (barely) managed to block or parry with his sword and shield. Then she brought out the second blade, and he was slowly forced back. As he fought her off, he summoned a barrage of Darkness-type magical bolts above & behind him, and let them fly, forcing Teana to disengage and go on the defense to dodge or block them.

Subaru rushed in again, striking with a daemon-chakra-enhanced Vibration Shatter that blew the demon's shield to bits, leaving him with just his sword. Marie fired five Concussion Missiles; the first three broke the demon's summoned rune-shield, and the last two hit the ground where he'd been standing a split-second earlier. The demon was promptly blindsided by a magically-charged haymaker from Nanoha, which sent him careening into a well-placed rune-shield from Yūno that he pancaked against, sliding down & off a second later. He quickly regained himself, just in time to dodge a _Fūton: Shinkū Taigyoku _from Teana. Marie pointed a charged Annihilator Burst at him, a cartridge ejected from Charon, and a 'Sonic Boom' blast fired, a wave of raw, destructive sound smashing into him. The demon quickly leapt to his feet, shaking off the stun he'd been dealt.

And then Subaru's aura flared, as two more tails formed from her Chakra Cloak. At the same time, Teana's _Susanō _surged into existence, the _Totsuka no Tsurugi _igniting in its right hand. And then Nanoha's body surged with a massive amount of raw power, while Marie began charging up a Chaos Flare. After assessing his situation, the demon magically summoned a wrist-watch and then glanced at it.

"**Oh my, just look at the time. Sadly, I must be going now. Sorry we can't finish things here & now. See you later. Bye-bye!**"

In a burst of black smoke, he vanished, leaving everyone staring at where he'd been standing. After several seconds, they all powered down.

"Coward…" Teana whispered harshly.

"Incoming transmission" Raising Heart reported.

"_Away Team, this is Cody!_" the Clone Commander's voice said over the comm. "_We got big trouble back at the capital! Get your arses back here ASAP!_"

"Solid copy, Commander" Nanoha replied. "We're on the way. Yūno?"

The young man nodded, and everyone got in close as a teleportation circle flared to life beneath his feet. A flash of green and they were gone.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Cranagan**

**40 seconds later**

Star Group reappeared outside the temporary headquarters set up outside the damaged TSAB Army HQ. The trouble immediately became apparent: 12 droid warships, casting their shadows over the city, blocking out what sunlight filtered through the cloudy sky overhead. The _Starshot _and the Bureau task-fleet were racing back to Midchilda as fast as they could, but they weren't going to make it before the enemy ships started firing. The rest of RF6's ground forces, Gamma Team, and a few others gathered around the recently-returned group, all of them sheltered beneath a tent-roof as they watched the lead enemy vessel – a 600-meter cruiser – approaching Cranagan over the ocean, its spine-mounted directed energy weapon charging, prepared to fire at the Ground HQ spire.

A charging whine and a purple glow in the sky heralded a thin white beam of death, lancing down from on high. It gutted the enemy cruiser, punching through the bridge. A massive explosion ripped through the ship's aft end, and secondary explosions chained along its length as it began to fall. The group ran out and looked up, and the completely shocked look on Teana's face slowly shifted to relief and joy as she recognized the 10.7-kilometer vessel.

"That's not a cloud…" Subaru remarked, eyes wide and jaw dropped at the sheer size of the titanic warship that slowly lowered through the cloud cover, its ventral energy projector's glow fading. A voice came over the comm., confident and – for Teana – wonderfully familiar:

"_Attention, personnel of the Time-Space Administration Bureau. This is Arbiter Thel Vadam, Ship-Master of the Sangheili Alliance _Divinity_-class supercarrier _Immortal Honor_. We are on station to provide support._"

Like warrior-angels descending from heaven, more ships began to emerge through the clouds – UNSC destroyers, which quickly opened fire on the droid ships, which in turn began to beat a rapid retreat, soaring upward in an attempt to escape the planet's gravity well and jump out. As they ascended, the clouds parted as if by God's hands, revealing that the sky was full of ships – UNSC, Sangheili Alliance, Phoenix League, Koprulu Terran, and even Protoss. The armada quickly destroyed the 11 droid ships, ensuring that the wrecks would crash well away from populated areas.

"IFF tags indicate that, excluding the _Starshot _and18 TSAB ships already here beforehand, 130 allied vessels are present" Cross Mirage reported.

"Cavalry's here" Yūno said in the same tone as someone announcing a friend's arrival at one's house.

"_Gamma-1, this is Knight-Actual_" said the voice of UNSC Fleet Admiral Hood. "_It looks like we showed up just in time._"

"A-Admiral, sir…" Teana replied, still dumbstruck. "H-How are you all here? Why?"

"_We managed to puzzle out the transdimensional component of slipspace travel thanks to studying the tech from Onyx,_" Hood said, "_and the Huragok from the Shield World in question. We followed your trail, so to speak, and made contact with Raynor's Raiders, the Protoss, and the Phoenix League, and ensured that they all got their own new & improved slipspace drives. All parties involved have already laid the groundwork for formal politico-military alliances. As for how we knew to come here, well… a little black-cloaked bird informed us that you folks were having some trouble._"

"The girl who fought alongside me & Negi…" Teana realized.

"And gave us that data" Nanoha added.

"Where are you, sir?" Teana asked. "Which ship?"

Hood chuckled. "_Look to the east._"

Teana did… and laid eyes on _the _largest human warship she'd ever seen (well, unless the theories that the Al-Hazredians were humans turned out to be true, in which case the _Saint's Cradle _took that title). It was 5,694 meters from end to end, covered in weapon emplacements, and casting a shadow over where it flew. This, Teana realized, was the UNSC's secret weapon, still in construction when she'd left that realm. The UNSC's cutting-edge trump card.

The _Infinity_.

"_Hey, Teana_" another familiar voice said. "_Good to see we showed up in the nick of time._"

"Commander Raynor?" she replied. "You're here, too?"

"_That I am. I couldn't just leave the girl who helped me so much hangin'._"

"_Lanstar,_" an echoing female voice said over the comm. "_It is good to see you still live. Perhaps this time we may fight __alongside__ one another._"

"Executor Selendis…"

"_It looks like we only had a couple seconds to spare_" said a young man's voice. "_That could've been ugly._"

"Rear-Admiral Devine…"

Teana's legs felt a tad wobbly. Subaru helped hold her up.

"_Gamma-1, this is Gamma Actual_" Col. Holland's voice said as the _Starshot _descended. "_Sorry we couldn't get back in time. But it looks like the situation is… under control, to say the least. The _Infinity _is sending a few Pelicans to pick up your squad and anyone else who wants to come along. I'll be heading there to meet with Lord Hood._"

Minutes later, the three Pelicans were lifting off again, Gamma Team and several others aboard, heading for the UNSC dreadnaught.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Aboard the UNSC **_**Infinity**_

**Seven minutes later**

The ride to the bridge was relatively quick thanks to a tram system. The girls of Gamma looked around, observing the titanic ship in action. Nanoha, Fate, Yūno, Hayate, Signum, Shamal, Vita, Subaru, Erio, & Caro were in awe; they'd never been inside something so huge. When they were almost to their destination, the tram stopped to let on another passenger, one they all recognized.

"Good to see you, Teana" the woman said.

"Dr. Halsey?" Teana said. "You're here, too?"

"I am one of the foremost living experts of the UNSC on Forerunner technology, much of which has gone into upgrading this vessel. I personally oversaw many of these upgrades. Now I am here to see how they hold up… and to see you again, of course."

"I'm guessing Parangosky isn't happy about this?"

Halsey's expression showed a brief flash of contempt at the old woman's name. "She is dead" Halsey replied. "She suffered a fatal stroke; old age did what her many enemies could not."

"Oh. So who heads ONI now?"

"Someone with the surname Osman. That is, regrettably, all I know for the moment."

"They haven't been causing you trouble, though?"

"No, they haven't. The new head is likely too busy cleaning up the myriad messes his or her predecessor left behind."

"Well, that's good news."

Dr. Halsey then turned to Nanoha. "So we finally meet, Ms. Takamachi."

"We've mended ties" Teana cut in before the Doctor could say anything. "It's a long story."

"I see. Well, you'll have to give me the details when we have more time."

"Indeed I will, ma'am" Teana replied.

The tram arrived at its destination, and everyone disembarked, heading down the walkway that led to the bridge.

"Yo, kid!" a man's voice shouted. "Damn good to see ya in one piece."

Teana turned in the direction, and a smile appeared. "Johnson! Chief!"

The others looked, and saw a tall black man in UNSC Marine Corps gear and a hat with the Sergeant-Major insignia on it, and a _very _tall man clad head to toe in green armor with a gold visor. Teana walked up to them.

"Lanstar" the Master Chief greeted. To the unobservant his tone was stoic, but those who knew the Spartans well could tell he was glad to see the girl.

"Master Chief, Sergeant-Major… Man, they really brought _everyone_, huh?"

"Pretty much" Johnson replied. "We heard ya were in big trouble, so everybody got as many ships together as we could on such short notice and high-tailed it here."

"And I'm damn glad you did" Teana replied. Her gaze drifted to the Chief. "Your armor looks… different."

"It's the Mark-7" the Master Chief replied. "Halsey's latest masterpiece. Weighs a little less than the Mark-6 but the armor's just as tough, and the suit has nanotech components for limited auto-repair, the fusion core's been upgraded, the energy shields are stronger and can be shaped to a limited degree, and the armor also comes with active AI transfer protocols and even slipspace de-insertion capability."

"They're really pushing the 'one-man army' angle, aren't they?" Marie cut in.

"We brought one for ya" Johnson said to Teana. "Customized for you, waitin' in the starboard aft armory; you can swap out your Mark-6 for it."

"…Let's get to the bridge first" Teana said after a few seconds of thought. "We need to report in to Fleet-Admiral Hood."

"Right this way" Johnson replied.

The group followed the Spartan-1 and Spartan-2 down a couple more passageways, and soon they all stepped through the door marked 'BRIDGE'. The _Infinity_'s bridge was spacious, and in the center was a large holographic table. Around the table stood Captain Andrew Del Rio, Commanding Officer of the _Infinity_; Commander Thomas Lasky, the _Infinity_'s XO; Colonel Urban Holland (recently arrived via his own dropship from the _Starshot_); and Fleet-Admiral Terrence Hood. Joining them were real-time, full-sized holographic representations of Shipmaster Zhal Arum, Arbiter Thel Vadam, Shipmaster Rtas Vadum, Commander Raynor & Captain Horner, Executor Selendis, Rear-Admiral Devine, and TSAB Admiral Lindy Harlaown. The newcomers all saluted.

"At ease" Fleet-Admiral Hood said. He walked forward, extending a hand.

"Good to see you again, Gamma-1."

Teana took the offered hand and shook it. "Likewise, sir"

"Would you be so kind as to fill us in?" he asked.

"Our enemy, a brilliant but unstable scientist/engineer named Jail Scaglietti, recently made an alliance with enemies of an… unnatural nature. In addition to some of their foot soldiers, he has access to a massive army of battle droids. As well, there are three powerful magic-wielding cyborgs in his service; there _were _four, but Subaru here recently killed one. Seven more defected to our side after he forged his recent alliance; they saw his new allies for what they are, a threat to all life on this planet. He has, I quote, "dozens more" droid-controlled warships like the ones you guys just took out. His flagship, however, is a massive warship of unknown design, approximately 14 kilometers from stem to stern."

"Jesus…" Commander Lasky muttered. "How do we fight _that_?"

"What's more," Nanoha added, "we cannot simply destroy this ship – the _Saint's Cradle_. My ward is being held prisoner on it."

"_Your ward?_" Vadum's hologram questioned.

"Her name is Vivio" Teana replied. "She's around five years old. And she possesses _tremendous _magical power, enough that she's been involuntarily hooked up to the ship's command center as a guidance system and power conduit."

"_They're using a __toddler__ to power a warship?_" Matt Horner asked, incredulous and more than a little angry.

"We don't know where they went" Signum chimed in. "Our ships and scanners were unable to discern their destination point when they jumped to warpspace."

"_Well, we'll see if we can solve that issue_" Devine said.

"_I'm en route to Midchilda with an attack fleet_" Lindy said. "_Once we've arrived, we'll consolidate with you gentlemen's forces and help try to track Scaglietti down. And once that has been done, we'll join you in the assault._"

"We need to board the vessel" Teana said. "We'll need a team to infiltrate one way or another – someone strong enough to fight whatever big guns they have and also carve through their cannon fodder, and possibly damage some internals, leave the ship dead in the water."

"I'll be leading that one" Nanoha said.

"I volunteer" the Master Chief added.

"And so do I" Teana said.

"Count me in, too!" Vita said.

"We'll need a little while to iron out a solid plan" Nanoha said. "But I'm sure we can do this."

"In the meantime," Hood said, "perhaps you could give me a report on what you've all been up to since departing our realm, Colonel Holland."

"Yes, sir" the other man replied. "I've already compiled reports on our activities in anticipation of the eventual link-up with the UNSC. I'll have them sent to you. Also, sir, I was wondering if we could have some of our surgeons and techs do something."

"What is it?"

Holland gestured to Subaru. "Corporal Nakajima here has a multitude of internal cybernetic enhancements. However, technologically they are not as advanced as what the UNSC and Phoenix League have access to. Recently she was injured in battle and several of the components were damaged; we repaired or replaced the damaged components, but left the rest alone due to insufficient resources to safely tamper with them" He turned to face the girl. "With your permission, Nakajima, I was wondering if we could have our specialists perform a total overhaul of your augmentations, or at least what parts we can touch without risking your life and functionality; either replace or upgrade your internal components to get them top-of-the-line. With more up-to-date and advanced cybernetics, you would get a definite edge in combat. …You might even end up able to safely wear and use Mjolnir Armor."

Subaru thought for several seconds, and then nodded. "Do it" she said. "I'll need all the help I can get if I'm going to get my sister back."

"Your sister?" Captain Del Rio asked.

"She was captured by the enemy" Holland replied. "She, like Subaru here, is a cyborg. We've confirmed she's been… brainwashed, for lack of a better word, and is being forced to fight for Scaglietti and his forces. She's a valuable asset; we need to free her and get her back alive and not crippled, if at all possible."

"Alright" Hood said. "Halsey?"

"I will personally contact the best surgeons and technicians in the fleet," the woman replied, "and I will personally oversee the augmenting and replacing of her cybernetics. I'd prefer to have a least one Huragok assisting as well, preferably one with at least basic knowledge of anatomy." She turned to Subaru, a grandmotherly smile on her face. "Don't worry, dear; you'll be in good hands. And you'll be recovered and ready for action before the battle begins, I promise you."

"_It will be done_" the Arbiter said. "_And perhaps after this is over, we can upgrade the seven defectors as well, should they choose to accept the offer._"

"Yeah, one of them lost an eye in battle a few years back and _still _hasn't had it replaced" Marie said. "Though I've got to admit, the eyepatch does look kinda cool on her, and the augmentations in her remaining eye ensure that she still has depth perception…"

"_We'll see what we can do_" Devine said.

The voice of a Sangheili suddenly came over the comm. channel.

"_Arbiter Vadam, Admiral Hood, a team of Huragok have recovered the navigational databanks from the ship that the _Immortal Honor _struck down._"

"Excellent" Hood replied. "Send it up." He then looked to the holo-table. "Cortana?"

In response, the blue avatar of the UNSC's most capable AI popped up. "I'll get right on it, Admiral" Cortana said. She turned to Lanstar. "Good to see you again. It looks like you've done well for yourself, relatively speaking."

"You could say that, I guess" Teana replied.

Hood turned to face the Bureau personnel, especially focusing on Nanoha and Subaru. His expression softened, an almost-grandfatherly air to him. "Don't worry. We'll get your people back. And we'll make the bastard who took them pay for it."

"Thank you, sir"

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Several Hours Later**

"Wake up, dear."

Groaning, Subaru opened her eyes. She was laying in a hospital bed in the _Infinity_'s medbay, and Teana was standing over her. She groaned and stretched, sitting up.

"Hey, easy" Teana said, placing her hands on her girlfriend's uncovered shoulders. "You just got out of surgery 90 minutes ago."

"…And I'm already up and able to move?" Subaru asked.

"The UNSC know their stuff, and so do the Phoenix League. Every one of the upgrades, replacements, and augmentations went off without a hitch. Shario is helping Cortana and a few Huragok reinforce and upgrade Mach Caliber right now, so she can handle your new level of ability."

"I do feel… different" Subaru said, looking down at herself. The faintest of pale lines marked where incisions had been made, Phoenix League medical nanites and the 7-Tails' healing factor ensuring the barest minimum of scarring, which would also heal and disappear soon thanks to the latter.

"I don't know the specifics," Teana said, "but suffice to say that you could keep up with me easily now. Oh, and a team of Huragok have already gotten to work constructing a custom suit of Mjolnir Armor for you; with how fast those pink gasbags work, it shouldn't take more than two-thirds of a day."

"_Teana, this is Cortana_" the AI's voice came over Lanstar's comm. "_We've figured out where the enemy went. Come on up to the bridge; we'll fill in everyone at once._"

"Copy that, Cortana. Thanks."

Subaru slowly pulled herself up and out of bed, standing on slightly-unsteady legs for a few seconds before she found her balance. She moved around a bit, getting a feel for her upgraded body. She was interrupted by a thrown pair of panties smacking her in the head, which she caught before they could fall. She looked at Teana, who had a bit of a smirk. Subaru grinned.

"Oh, like you're not enjoying the view" she teased.

"Believe me, I am" the redhead replied. "But I don't think the entire bridge crew needs to see it. Get dressed; we'll head up together."

10 minutes later, the duo arrived, finding everyone else present – either in-person or as a hologram – as well. Cortana "stood" atop the central holographic table.

"It was tougher than I'd expected," she said, "but I've finally discerned our enemy's location. There was a ton of false and junk data, dead-ends, hopscotch paths to nowhere, and hidden tracks, but I am 100% certain that I have pinpointed the enemy's coordinates."

"Where?" Nanoha asked.

Cortana waved a hand, and in response the table projected the image of a planet, covered in forests, mountains, and deserts, along with about 65% ocean cover. The jaws of Signum, Vita, Zafira, and Shamal collectively dropped as they recognized the world, one they hadn't seen in centuries, the biosphere apparently having at least partially recovered from the wars that had harmed it in ages past.

"Oberon Sector, Talcus System, second planet" Cortana said. "Belka."

Among the Bureau folks, you could've heard a pin drop.

"We found it…" Yūno whispered, in awe. "After over a century of searching, we've found it…"

"So it was in the Oberon Sector…" Fate murmured. "The outer boundary of that sector's only 200 parsecs outside of the TSAB's galactic-northeast border. It was so close all this time, and we never found it before now?"

"Are we missing something here?" Captain Del Rio asked.

"The Belkans were Midchilda's predecessor civilization" Yūno explained. "Our forerunners. Their empire spanned nearly a third of the entire galaxy. But about 400 or 500 years ago, they descended into a horrific civil war. Many worlds were lost in the fighting, which lasted hundreds of years; Belka itself was believed to be one of them. The few survivors, lost and exhausted, found Midchilda and, along with the colonists and war refugees already there, formed the foundations of what would become our modern society."

"So you guys will be setting foot on history if all goes well?" Cortana remarked.

"How long before the fleet's ready to jump?" Teana asked.

"_They're all already prepared_" Lindy replied. "_We were just waiting on coordinates._"

"Which I will upload to every one of the ships now" Cortana said.

"Alright" Hood said. "We leave in 30 minutes. Everyone to your stations and get ready."

A chorus of "yes, sir"s answered him.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**27 minutes later**

_**Infinity **_**Troop Bay**

"Men, ladies, the time has come for us to once again show the galaxy what we marines can do."

Sergeant-Major Avery Johnson stood in front of every single marine aboard the _Infinity_, all gathered in one spot. Across the alliance fleet, his speech was being broadcasted to every UNSC ship, the soldiers aboard them listening intently.

"Our little Spartan Lanstar, the gal who helped the Master Chief save humanity's collective asses, has hooked up with her old Bureau buddies, who are now in a heap o' trouble. They are outnumbered, outgunned, and cannot handle this alone. …That is why _we _are here. A wacko the likes of which would make the worst of the Insurrection gape in shock has dug up the biggest damn ship any of y'all will ever see, and he's got a shitload of droid warships backin' him up. The Time-Space Administration Bureau cannot handle this alone. But they will not have to.

"The enemy has fallen back to a planet that's already seen its fair share of war in centuries past. They think they've won, that they're safe and secure hidin' in their little corner of the galaxy, that they're gonna get away with killin' good soldiers, kidnappin' kids, givin' the helpless masses nightmares and despair. But _that's _where they're _wrong_!

"We are gonna jump over there, and our Big Damn Fleet is gonna blow their asses into space dust! We'll reduce his vaunted army of killin' machines into scrap metal to make our new guns with! We will make the Mad Doctor _pay _for hurtin' our friends! 'Cause when somebody fucks with our friends, they fuck with _us_! _Now let's get out there, and show those bastards what happens when they fuck with the UNSC Marine Corps!-!_"

"_OO-RAH!-!-!_"

As the cheer went out across the UNSC fleet, the alliance armada got into position in orbit over Midchilda. As one, one Fleet-Admiral Hood's signal, every last ship jumped into slipspace or warpspace, bound for Belka.

"Hang on, Vivio" Nanoha muttered, fire in her eyes. "Mama's coming."

**-**_**CHAPTER END**_**-**

NEXT TIME: The Battle of Belka


	6. The Battle of Belka Part 1

SEE FIRST CHAPTER FOR DISCLAIMERS

PLEASE READ & REVIEW, AND TEND TO THE TROPE PAGE

**-**_**CHAPTER START**_**-**

**UNSC **_**Infinity**_

**In Slipspace**

It had been 80 minutes since the coalition fleet entered slipspace, and Cortana had estimated around 40 more before they arrived in the Talcus System. Nanoha had spent the entire time in her temporary quarters, deep in meditation as she, in her own words, made sure she'd be able to pull off her "trump card". Teana had been in the _Infinity_'s massive training chamber, continuing practice on the technique she'd been working on for at least two months now. Nearly everyone was preparing themselves, arming themselves, psyching themselves up, getting ready for the coming battle.

Subaru sat at a table in the mess hall, grabbing a last-chance snack while she could.

"Subaru?"

The voice from nowhere made Subaru jump a little, and then look up and around. The blue avatar then appeared in the center of the table.

"Cortana" Subaru relaxed. "You startled me a bit."

"Sorry about that" the AI replied. "I've been combing through some records the Bureau managed to salvage from Scaglietti's old base, and I found something I think you might want to know."

"And what would that be?"

"The identity of the person who killed your & Ginga's mother."

Subaru's fork hit the table, falling from her hand, as her blue-green eyes focused wholly on Cortana.

"W-Who was it…?" she managed to choke out. "Where can I find them?"

"You can find the person who killed your mother in a freezer in the morgue at Cranagan General Hospital. You yourself put her there."

Subaru's eyes widened in realization. "The purple-haired cyborg…"

"Yes" Cortana replied. "Tre, the defectors called her. The one you killed when you first tapped into the 7-Tails' power. She was the one who killed Quint Nakajima years ago. You got your revenge and you didn't even know it."

Subaru sat silently for several seconds, processing all this. Before anything more could be said, though, another person entered the cafeteria.

"Hey, Subaru" Teana said as she sat down next to her girlfriend. "Hey, Cortana."

"Tia?" Subaru asked. "You're out already? Did you get that technique nailed down?"

"We'll find out" the redhead replied. "So what's wrong? You look a little shaken."

"I just found out that the cyborg I killed during Jail's assault on the capital was the one who killed my mother."

"…Oh" Teana's expression changed, and she put a hand on Subaru's shoulder. The blue-haired girl responded by placing her own hand atop Teana's.

"I guess this means Quint-san can rest easy now" Teana said after a stretch of silence.

"No…" Subaru replied. "Not until Gin-nee is safe and Jail's been taken down. Then mom can rest easy."

"Right."

Less than a minute later, the other six girls of Gamma Team walked in, congregating around Subaru & Teana. The situation was quickly explained to them.

"I've found something even more interesting out" Cortana said as she reappeared. "Namely, I've discerned the reason behind the apparent temporal discrepancies you girls have encountered between various worlds."

"Really?" said Nanoha as she walked up, startling a few of the girls. "Do tell."

"Nanoha-san?" Kaede asked. "You're done preparing, too?"

"I'm reasonably sure I can pull it off if I have to" the brunette replied. "Anyway, Cortana-san, could you please tell us what you've discovered?"

"Gladly" the AI said. "Do you remember the Forerunner crystal Dr. Halsey found beneath CASTLE Base on Reach? How, when I brought the _Ascendant Justice _into slipspace over Threshold, it literally pulled us several days back in time? Well, it turns out that the _Starshot _has been following a similar "event path". When Teana jumped to my home dimension, the ship literally traveled several months back in time to appear when it did; that means that at the same time Teana was getting acclimated with the UNSC and Noble Team, she was also still on Midchilda, undergoing training with the Forwards. It happened again, though not quite as far back, with the other worlds. This explains why, though Teana has experienced several months' passing, for the UNSC only three months have passed since she left us."

"So we've been… time-traveling…" Marie murmured, eyes wide. "…I'm not sure if this is categorized as 'awesome', 'fucking weird', 'disconcerting', or some mixture of the above…"

"It seems that none of us can control if or when it happens, however" Cortana continued. "It is apparently controlled and triggered by the ship itself, or more accurately by its almost-crystalline slipspace drive core. So no going back to change history, I'm afraid."

"That's probably for the best" Sarah replied. "If fiction has taught us humans anything, it's that messing with time like that almost always ends very badly for all involved."

"We're about 30 minutes out now" Cortana said. "You'd all best get ready. We're going in hard and fast."

"Bow-chicka-bow-wow" Marie said. Sarah and Teana stifled a laugh, Subaru didn't bother to do so, and Nanoha & Cortana just facepalmed.

"I walked right into that one…" Cortana muttered, a slight grin on her face regardless.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Talcus System, Planet Belka**

**36 minutes later**

Jail Scaglietti relaxed in his groundside base. Viewscreens around him showed live images of various locales, including orbit. Here he was, on Belka, with an army of droids and the last & greatest Al-Hazred dreadnaught at his command, his own body enhanced and empowered by the other-realm folk he'd allied with. Contrary to expectations, he wholly expected that the Bureau would eventually find this place and him. But the presence of the _Saint's Cradle _and nearly 100 droid warships assured him that nothing the TSAB sent would be enough to triumph.

His thoughts were interrupted as one of the viewscreens enlarged and took center position in front of him, showing a warpspace rift opening, a single TSAB _Lance_-class cruiser emerging. Five more soon followed. He gave a sly, confident grin as he eyed the feeble force.

Then more Bureau ships emerged, adding up to 20 in total. Then ships that were very much _not _of the TSAB began to emerge, more and more by the second, some of them quite large and all of them looking primed for combat. The grin slowly slid off of his face and his eyes widened, as the largest of the vessels – five 5.35-kilometer bulbous-looking ships, a 5,700-meter blocky & angular one, and a 10.7-kilometer monster of the same profile as the five half its size – returned to realspace at the rear center of the armada's formation. Jail looked at the image of 150 enemy ships, as they opened fire, and his droid ships began to burn.

"Oh, dear" was all he said.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

The _Infinity _shuddered slightly as its primary MAC fired, gutting a 1500-meter droid ship from stem to stern. Another droid vessel, around 500 meters in size, listed, spewing fire from several rents in its hull, as the _Forward Unto Dawn _continued pounding it with its guns. The _Shadow of Intent_'s energy projector lanced out, slicing through a 1050-meter droid light cruiser. The _Hyperion_'s fusion cannon fired, the blast vaporizing the rear half of a 400-meter droid heavy corvette. The _Striking Hammer_'s fusion cannon blew apart the remaining half. A swarm of Interceptor drones from the _Purity's Blade_ engaged a squadron of droid interceptors and space-modified Type-2 Gadget Drones, cutting down on their numbers. A trio of plasma torpedoes from the _Immortal Honor _crashed into a 2200-meter droid battleship, quickly burning through the ships' meager shields and destroying the vessel.

As he watched from the bridge of the _Infinity_, directing the battle, and saw as a UNSC destroyer withstood a droid light cruiser's barrage and returned fire with its MACs, Admiral Hood was very thankful that the Arbiter had shared starship energy shield technology with the UNSC, and that the Huragok donated for the cause and recovered from Onyx were able to install it into every ship in the UNSC Navy. He looked at the _Marathon_-class cruiser _Stigmata_, brought back from the dead to fight for humanity again. In the wake of Truth's death, the UNSC had returned to Reach, and to the orbital graveyard of ships the Covenant had made. Due to the nature of space combat in the Great War, while Covenant ships were nearly always totally destroyed, UNSC ships could sometimes be taken out of commission without irreparably damaging the vessel. A not-insignificant number of "dead" ships from the Reach Graveyard had been pulled out, repaired & refitted, and put back to work. A few people got upset about it, calling it disrespectful to the departed, but the fact was that the UNSC was in bad need of ships. Thus, the dissenters had no choice but to just deal with it.

"Fleet-Admiral, sir?" Commander Lasky reported. "Infiltration team is aboard the prowler _Afterimage_, ready to go. The _Plymouth _is prepared to make a micro-jump and hot-drop the Bureau's ground forces. They're waiting for your go, sir."

"Permission granted" Hood replied. "And let's see if we can punch a big enough hole to start dropping troops groundside. First, though, let's get ready to knock that behemoth's shields down. Weapons, target the _Saint's Cradle_, ready primary MAC at half charge."

"Targeting enemy dreadnaught, primary MAC at half-charge, aye sir"

A few seconds, and then "Fire".

The massive slug of depleted uranium shot out at relativistic velocity, impacting the _Cradle_ and exploding against its shields, which flared brightly.

"_Afterimage_, this is Hood. Go now!"

"_Yes, sir_!" Commander Norem replied, the prowler activating countermeasures and moving as fast as it could while running dark. A Phoenix League _Arbites_-class stealth-field projector vessel flew alongside it, allowing the _Afterimage _to go hot and pick up the pace, the _Arbites _shielding it from detection. They zoomed by friendly & enemy ships, making a beeline for the _Saint's Cradle_. As they neared the massive vessel, another shot from the _Infinity _struck it along with a MAC strike from the _Forward Unto Dawn _and one from the _Shield of Thermopylae_, and its energy shields collapsed. Immediately a small craft detached from the _Afterimage _and raced toward the _Cradle_. The comparatively-minuscule Covenant boarding craft rapidly approached the hull, protected from point-defense guns by Cortana's hacking of them. By the time the _Saint's Cradle_'s energy shields popped back up and began to slowly recharge, the boarding craft was already inside them.

The gadget-drones patrolling a hallway just inside the hull received a sudden, nasty surprise as a tube-like projection abruptly punched through, sticking in like the proboscis of a mosquito in a blood vessel. The hatch slid open, and a barrage of pink spheres of magical energy raced out, scrapping most of the droids. Immediately afterward, a green blur of motion raced out, guns blazing and quickly taking down the few remaining. The Master Chief swept the area.

"Clear" he called back to the other three passengers of the boarding craft.

Nanoha, Teana, and Vita stepped out, all three with Barrier Jackets on and Devices in hand.

"Something feels… wrong" Vita said.

"Anti-Magilink Field present through most of the ship" Raising Heart reported.

"So we're fighting with a bit of a handicap here" Teana said, and then glanced to the Master Chief. "Well, most of us."

"And the AM Field won't affect chakra usage, so that's one more point in our favor" Nanoha added.

Nanoha took a deep breath, gathering herself.

"Alright" she said. "Just like we planned. Teana, you're with me; we'll rescue Vivio. Vita, find the ship's power core and smash it up."

"With pleasure" the little redhead grinned.

"Master Chief, Cortana, you two get to the onboard droid factory and do what you do best."

"Yes, ma'am" the Chief replied.

"Okay, let's move!"

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

The UNSC frigate _Plymouth_ disappeared into slipspace in the midst of the battle and, milliseconds later, reappeared in low orbit over Belka. From its underside deployed six Single-Occupant Exoatmospheric Insertion Vehicles, plummeting down to the planet. As the _Plymouth _rejoined the battle, the pods continued their gravity-assisted descent, new technology ensuring that the ride was safer – and not quite as unbearably hot – as older models' trips. At 800 meters above ground, the pods' chutes deployed. At 200, the bottom thrusters fired. And at 50 meters the chutes detached and the thrusters went to maximum power. They hit ground, every one of them safe & sound. The hatches opened.

"Well, that was interesting" Signum said as she made sure Levantine was ready.

"Woo!" Wendi shouted, a huge grin on her face. "Do it again! Do it again!"

"Shut up…" Nove groaned, unsteadily pulling herself out of her pod. "That was so not cool…"

Fate, Subaru, and Cinque emerged from their pods, ensuring that their gear was on hand and undamaged. The six then gathered in the middle of the landing zone.

"Alright," Fate said, "does everyone remember their roles?"

"Affirmative" Cinque replied. "Nove, Wendi, and I will accompany you to Scagletti's base; there, you will head off to confront him while we secure Megane Alpine, and then get Lutecia to switch sides once she knows her mother is safe and out of Jail's clutches."

"Meanwhile," Signum continued, "I will find and deal with Zest while Subaru handles Ginga."

Fate turned to Subaru with a concerned expression. "Are you sure you can handle this?"

Subaru nodded. "I have to be able to" she replied. "Out of all of us, I know Gin-nee's fighting style the best, so I need to be the one to fight her."

"Just be careful" Fate said.

"Let us make haste" Signum said. "We have much to do and not much time to do it in."

With that, she flew off, the others heading out soon after.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

The two high-tier mages flew through the twisting corridors at best speed, blasting through any gadget drones, battle droids, and the occasional minor demon that got in their way. As they flew down a final corridor that led to a large set of double-doors, a massive battle droid, the size of an Mgalekgolo, stood in their path. In response, Nanoha moved forward, gathering a spiraling sphere of chakra in her left palm that she then smashed into the droid's torso:

"_Rasengan_!"

The attack blew a massive hole in/through the war-droid's torso, and the inert machine collapsed to the ground in pieces.

"Thanks again for teaching me that, Teana" Nanoha said.

"I figured it'd be well-suited to you" the redhead replied.

The duo then walked up to and shoved open the doors, entering the cavernous "throne room". At the far end, strapped to the throne, was Vivio, looking weak and frail, seemingly either unconscious or barely conscious. Standing next to her was a Combat Cyborg who fitted the defectors' description of Quattro. The woman smirked at them.

"Took you long enough" Quattro quipped.

"Let her go now," Teana snarled, readying Mirage Longsword, "and I _might _make your death quick."

"And miss out on seeing what the power of Olivie Segbrecht can do when wielded by her clone? No thanks."

At this point, Vivio stirred, lifting her head and laying eyes on the two mages.

"M-Mama?" she whimpered.

And then Quattro snapped her fingers, and raw _power_ began to flow into Vivio, causing the girl to scream in pain and terror. Immediately Nanoha rushed forward while unleashing a blast of magic at Quattro, who caught it in one hand and, with some effort, tossed it aside. The cruel cyborg then leapt back to avoid being bisected by Teana, who went at her with a vengeance. Meanwhile, Nanoha tried desperately to force her way through the barrier encompassing Vivio. Then, however, she somehow felt as a corruptive influence wormed its way into Vivio's head, bolstered by Quattro's telepathic lies. As Quattro herself flared with dark power and bashed Teana away, Vivio rose a few feet into the air, her body contorting in agony as it shifted and grew. Hair lengthened, form matured, and then a shockwave of power knocked Nanoha away, accompanied by a brilliant flash.

Teana flash-stepped to Nanoha's side and helped her to her feet, and then both looked up at what Vivio had become. The former-5-year-old had taken the form of a young woman Nanoha's age, her hair held in a single side ponytail. She was clad in a black and blue Barrier Jacket, and a look of calm hatred was on her face.

"You're the people who took my mama way" she said icily.

"Vivio…" Nanoha muttered in horror. "What has she done to you?"

Teana, in contrast, flared with rage, her _Sharingan _focusing on Quattro.

"I am going to rip each & every one of your cybernetics out of your still-conscious body one at a fucking time!" she shouted. "And then I'll slice you apart piece by piece!"

"Now, now," Quattro replied, "you shouldn't go making threats you can't back up." She turned to the brainwashed warrior beside her, summoning a serrated sword as she did. "Vivio, shall we squash these two insects?"

"Yes" the altered girl replied. "They'll both die for what they've done."

"I don't think we'll be able to talk her down, Nanoha-san" Teana muttered to her partner. "We'll have to incapacitate her… which may prove more difficult than we'd hoped, judging by how much power I'm sensing from her. …By the Saint, she could break even with Itachi-san with that much power. I wouldn't stand a chance one-on-one."

After several seconds, Nanoha steeled herself for what she would have to do. "I will save you, Vivio. I might have to hurt you a little to do it, though. I'm sorry."

She then took a combat stance, Raising Heart gripped tightly in her hands. Teana followed suit, Mirage Longsword readied. After several seconds, Teana made the first move, running toward Vivio… and then flash-stepping over to right in front of Quattro, who barely managed to block the strike in time. Vivio, meanwhile, braced herself to withstand an Accel Shooter barrage from Nanoha, and then lashed out with her own barrage of lethal-mode magical bolts, which crashed against Nanoha's rune-shield, fracturing but not breaking it. Teana leapt up & away from Quattro and fired off a _Katon: Gōkakyū_, the huge chakra-based fireball unaffected by the AM Field. Vivio flashed over into its path and created a barrier-shield that easily withstood the attack. She then punched her fist in Teana's direction, unleashing a shotgun blast of mana bolts. Teana rolled to the side, avoiding the attack, and in a blur of movement Nanoha appeared in front of her, Raising Heart blocking Quattro's downward slashing strike.

"You won't dispose of us that easily" Nanoha growled.

"Good" Quattro replied. "I was hoping for some fun."

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

Zest Grangaitz stood atop a grassy hill overlooking the valley that Jail's current base was in. He turned away, ignoring the tiny flashes of light high above that signified the epic battle in orbit, and called up a holovid screen, using some tech "borrowed" from Jail to connect to a certain office several light-years away. The video came to life, showing a portly, beady-eyed man in a TSAB Army officer's uniform.

"_Zest…_" General Regius Gaiz said, his tone weary. "_After I saw you in the images from the assault on Cranagan, I knew you'd confront me eventually. I was expecting it to be in person, though._"

"I am presently on Belka," Zest replied, "because that is where the little girl I have sworn to protect is."

"_Little girl?_"

"Megane Alpine's daughter. Megane is still alive, but badly injured and comatose ever since that day. Lutecia is assisting Jail for the purpose of finding a way to restore her."

"…_I see. What do you want from me, Zest? Justice? Vengeance? Guilt?_"

"I want answers, and an explanation. …That day, years ago, when you sent me, Nakajima, and Alpine on that mission, did you already know that you were sending us to our deaths? And if so… Why?"

"…_A terrible mistake, made by the three individuals of the TSAB High Council. Individuals who, as of 40 minutes ago, are dead – assassinated by an unknown enemy agent. It was they who created Jail Scaglietti, using genetic material from a long-dead Al-Hazredian scientist. They programmed him, so to speak, to create Combat Cyborgs for them, to either become part of the Bureau or act as incentives for more and stronger mages to do so. But Jail went rogue. I sent you and your squad to confront him, investigate his reasons for doing so. …I underestimated what he had become capable of, and you three paid the ultimate price for my mistake._"

"The High Council?" Zest, for the first time in ages, felt genuine shock. "_They _caused all this?"

"_Indeed_" Regius said sadly. "_And now millions of people are paying the price. Originally, Jail was their tool, but toward the end _he _was using _them_… and when they had outlived their usefulness, he had them… disposed of._"

Zest was about to say something, when suddenly he watched as four long, sharp claw-blades were rammed through Regius' chest from behind, attached to the arm of the staff member who'd been standing behind him… who then shifted shape & color, emerging as a Combat Cyborg with the Roman numeral "II/2" on her chestplate.

"_And now you have outlived _your _usefulness, General_" Due said. "_Pleasure doing business with you all these years; we will clean up the messes you've made._"

Regius reached out to the holo-image of Zest, trying to speak with shredded lungs but failing. With a final gurgle he fell forward across his desk, and went still. Zest gripped his Device, an angry scowl on his face.

"_What's with that look?_" Due laughed. "_You're clear across the galaxy from Midchilda right now. You can't hurt me._"

"_But I can_."

Zest watched in amazement as a whorl of black smoke appeared behind Due, who spun around in shock… just in time to take a glowing green energy blade through the chest that lifted her off the ground, emerging from an armguard worn by a tall, thin alien with glowing green eyes and no mouth, clad in golden armor and red cloth. The being stared into Due's eyes as the light left them, and then tossed her body aside, landing with a thud off-screen.

"_Pardon my sudden arrival_" the Dark Templar said. "_My name is Ulan; I am the one who tutored the green-haired human girl Shion in the ways of my people. Do you know her?_"

"…I know _of _her" Zest replied once the shock wore off.

"_Yes… As this fallen one died, I gleamed from her mind information on the present situation. Things have progressed more than we anticipated._"

"So now what happens?" Zest said.

"That depends on you."

Zest turned as Signum descended, Levantine ready. Agito emerged from the hood of Zest's coat, flames charged in her hands as she prepared to defend her _meister_. For several seconds, no-one moved.

"Vita has told me why you fight for Scaglietti" Signum said. "So long as Jail holds the comatose form of Megane Alpine hostage, Lutecia has no option but to fight for him."

"That is correct" the tall man replied.

Signum let the tiniest of smirks form. "That is why we have three agents infiltrating Scaglietti's base to secure and rescue Ms. Alpine, while one of our S-rank mages takes on Scaglietti himself."

Zest's eyebrows rose, the closest he'd come to letting this newcomer see his surprise. "Truly?" he asked.

"Truly" she replied. "Once the woman is safe, they will seek out Lutecia and convince her to defect from Scaglietti's service, as they themselves have done."

"…Three of the seven Numbers who realized what Scaglietti has become."

"Yes."

"…Very well" Zest said with a sense of finality. "Then my purpose will soon end, along with my life."

"What do you mean by that?" Signum asked.

Zest sighed. "The original Zest Grangaitz was killed by Jail and his first Numbers years ago. I am an exact clone of him. I have his memories, his personalities, his memories; I _am _him. I've been brought back from the dead. But… the cloning process was imperfect, flawed. My organs will not last much longer. I would estimate I only have a few months left to live."

"_Join us_" Ulan said. "_The civilizations that make up our alliance have medical technology significantly more advanced then the Bureau's. In particular, the UNSC's level of advancement in the field of medicine is extraordinary, able to flash-clone individual organs and tissues. They could use that technology to restore you, fix what is broken, give you another chance to truly live._"

"…Their medicine can do that?"

"And you would be alive to protect Lutecia against whatever threats she may face in the future" Signum added.

Zest was quiet for a minute, eyes closed as he thought. He opened his eyes and looked to Agito, the two sharing a glance for several seconds. Finally, he turned to Signum.

"Very well" he said. "I will fight with you. I will cut down the numbers of their cannon fodder, and then I will help convince Lutecia."

On the screen, Ulan disappeared. Seconds later, he reappeared beside Signum.

"Interstellar Void-Jumping?" Signum asked. "Impressive. Shion can only manage line-of-sight or homing in on a person's energy signature, and even then she's limited to around 100 kilometers."

"With age comes experience" Ulan replied. "I will assist the three risen ones with securing the girl's mother, and ensuring her – and their – safety."

"Let's move, then" Signum said.

"Wait" Zest held up a hand. "Before we head out, there is something that should be done. Agito… go with her?"

"What?-!" the fiery Unison Device protested. "But… But you're my _meister_!"

"Yes, but I've never been much of one for you. We're not very compatible; our Unisons always take a good deal out of both of us, and never provide too much of a stable boost anyway. But this woman… Something tells me you and she might be able to forge a stronger connection."

Agito looked decidedly unhappy as she processed this information, mainly because it made sense. With a heavy heart, she nodded & saluted to him, and then flew over to Signum's side.

"Ready when you are" she said.

"Then let us get going" Ulan said. In a whorl of smoke, he homed in on the infiltration trio's energy signature and Void-Jumped out. Seconds later, Zest, Signum, and Agito took off.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

The wind blew along the centuries-abandoned city street, the crumbling ruins covered in plant growth. Two figures stood about 50 meters apart, staring each other down, neither of them moving. Subaru's eyes flashed blue as she readied the 7-Tails' chakra on "stand-by" mode, while Ginga's cold golden eyes stared near-lifelessly back at her.

A piece of rubble from a nearby ancient building hit the ground, and the two rushed toward each other.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

Teana grit her teeth as her _Kratiste Aigis _barely managed to stop Vivio's attack, six of the seven rune-shields being taken out. She then found herself yanked out of the way by Nanoha just in time to avoid a Dark burst from Quattro. Nanoha sported a few surface wounds, as did Teana herself; Quattro had taken a few hits as well, but Vivio was still untouched.

"No choice" Nanoha remarked. "Guess I'll have to use it after all."

"Use what?" Teana questioned.

In response, Nanoha returned Raising Heart to its dormant form, slit her thumbs on her canine teeth, drew a small line of blood from each on the opposite palm, and then clapped her hands together, holding them at chest level in a praying position.

"Teana," she said, "my hands won't be free for a few minutes. Back me up, okay?"

"A-Alright" Teana replied, not quite understanding what was going on but trusting her partner to know what she was doing.

"Whatever you're planning," Quattro said, "you won't get the chance to implement it!"

She fired a barrage of Darkness bolts at Nanoha, only for Teana to intercept them with _Sharingan_-guided Crossfire Shot blasts. The redhead then intercepted an attack from Vivio, kicking the stunned warrior away and firing off a _Fūton: Shinkūgyoku _at the two hostiles. Vivio tanked them with a barrier, while Quattro flashed in behind Teana, sword raised… and was kicked away by Nanoha. Teana cast _Katon: Hibashiri_, creating a wall of fire, and then her fist lashed out, releasing a _Fūton: Senpūken _that punched through the fire-wall, becoming a spiraling column of wind-enhanced fire that crashed against Vivio's barrier, working through it.

The brainwashed powerhouse strained and let out a yell as she, with difficulty, pushed the attack aside. Teana's _Mangekyō _spun to life, as she combined her _Kamui _with a fire jutsu to create a huge vortex of flame spiraling outward:

"_Katon: Bakufū Ranbu_!"

Vivio and Quattro combined barriers in the face of the flame vortex, which impacted with significant force. With great difficulty, they were just barely able to withstand the entirety of the attack. As soon as their barrier lowered, Teana was in their face again, eyes back to basic _Sharingan _and Mirage Longswords swinging. She managed to overwhelm Quattro's defense and leave a burning cut on her cheek before Vivio punched her away, Teana's quick rune-shield shattering under the force of the blow, sending her tumbling away, ending up on her feet several meters distant. She looked to Nanoha, who now had a faint white glow surrounding her hands.

But then Quattro and Vivio rushed past Teana and directly toward Nanoha, and Teana knew she wouldn't reach them in time. Nanoha stared defiantly at them as time seemed to flow in slow motion, the two right in front of her, their blows lashing out.

An explosion of dust and debris obscured the three from Teana's sight as the far wall was impacted. Inside the dust cloud, Quattro and Vivio looked… and saw that there was no Nanoha, only a damaged wall.

'Where did she go?' Quattro thought.

"Too slow"

The two could not react in time, and Teana saw them both come flying out of the dust cloud, skidding to a stop a good distance away.

"Too fast" Vivio blurted out, shocked.

"So you ended up needing us after all, Nanoha-chan" said an old man's voice from within the dust cloud.

"Yes" Nanoha's voice replied. "My enemies are more powerful than I anticipated. And I have to take the more powerful of the two down alive and not too badly hurt."

"Is there a particular reason for that?" an old woman's voice asked. "Ah, no matter. I'm sure you have your reasons."

"Indeed."

A blur leapt out of the settling dust cloud, forward-rolling through the air several meters before then coming down in the middle of the throne room, the ground shattering beneath her feet. Shima and Fukasaku, the two Elder Toad Sages, sat atop Nanoha's shoulders, and when her head rose, her red-lidded eyes opened, yellow irises with rectangular pupils focusing on Vivio and Quattro, who felt shock at the _enormous _increase in power they could sense from the girl. Teana's jaw dropped just a little as she saw and felt the heights of Nanoha's new full power.

"Okay" the Sage Mode-empowered Nanoha said. "Round two!"

**-**_**CHAPTER END**_**-**

Move over, Teana; Nanoha has reclaimed her position as the most powerful of the Midchilda bunch.


	7. The Battle of Belka Part 2

Just for anyone wondering when they read Nanoha firing "bursts of Force" when in Sage Mode: just as _kanka _is the fusion of chakra and magic, _senjutsu _is a fusion of chakra and The Force. You don't have to be able to use the Force in your base form to use Sage Mode, but if you can't, then you can _only _use it in Sage Mode, and your capabilities with it will be significantly less than they would be if you were trained in its usage.

SEE FIRST CHAPTER FOR DISCLAIMERS

PLEASE READ & REVIEW, AND TEND TO THE TROPE PAGE

**-**_**CHAPTER START**_**-**

**Throne Room**

**Al-Hazred **_**Saint**_**-class Dreadnaught **_**Saint's Cradle**_

**High orbit over Belka**

Teana stared in unabashed awe at Nanoha, floored by being so close to someone with so much tremendous power, _senjutsu _energy coursing through and enveloping the young woman. Nanoha, for her part, stood still, looking out at Quattro and Vivio, who were both stunned by the massive increase in Nanoha's power level, along with the energy levels of the two wizened old toads perched on her shoulders.

"Hm?" Fukasaku looked at Vivo. "Those eyes… Nanoha-chan, is that…?"

"Yes" Nanoha replied. "That's Vivio. They've altered her, brainwashed her, and forced a magical transformation and a massive amount of power onto her. She doesn't remember me right now; she's been told that I'm responsible for her 'mother' disappearing."

"She has so much power…" Shima said, sensing it. "You were right to summon us. She's almost as much a threat as Pain."

"Who's the other one?" Fukasaku asked.

"Quattro" Nanoha replied. "One of Scaglietti's underlings. She's been empowered by Darkness, and she's the one responsible for Vivio's present state. She's not as strong as Vivio, but she's still strong enough to make this harder."

"I see…" the old toad said.

'What is this?' Quattro thought. 'This odd power… She's actually stronger than Vivio is right now! And those summons…'

Nanoha closed her eyes, extending her senses. Then, her eyes opened and her head turned in the direction of the right wall, staring off into the distance.

"Vita-chan's not doing so well" she said. "Teana… Go to her. Help her."

Teana startled. "But, I-"

"Now."

"But… Can you really handle these two by yourself?"

"She'll be fine, Teana-chan" Fukasaku said. "She has us, after all."

Nanoha raised her palm and pointed it at the wall. A pulse of power, and the wall shattered.

"Get going, Teana" she said. "We'll deal with these two."

"…R-Right" Teana replied, starting toward the hole.

"I won't let you escape!"

Before Teana could react, Nanoha intercepted Vivio's charge, appearing in her path and lashing out with a kick that Vivio blocked… and that sent Vivio flying, skipping across the floor and then smashing into the far wall. Nanoha turned to Teana and nodded, which the redhead returned, and then the younger girl flew off, following the directions Nanoha had telepathically given her.

Quattro gritted her teeth angrily as she readied herself, gripping her serrated blade. "This is _so _not going to plan…" she muttered.

Nanoha took a stance, her aura flaring.

"Come" she beckoned.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

Two figures clashed again and again, their Wing Roads crisscrossing the battlefield. If the brainwashed Ginga had been capable of emotion, she'd have felt frustration. Thanks to her recent upgrades, Subaru was stronger, faster, and tougher than she'd been before – enough to keep up with Ginga easily. Everything that Thirteen threw at Subaru, she countered. Subaru hadn't even used any of the power from her "tenant", and only a few low-level _ninjutsu _(mainly the Substitution Technique); she was determined to beat Ginga at her own game. And she was doing it.

Subaru rushed at Ginga, zigzagging as she charged a punch. But the reprogrammed cyborg saw through her pattern, and lashed out with a blow of her own… and when it struck, it passed clean through Subaru, who vanished into thin air.

'_Bunshin no Jutsu?_'

She spun around, throwing a shield up just in time to block a super-powered punch, the gears of Subaru's Revolver Knuckle spinning to add force and piercing power to the blow, Mach Caliber adding thrust to further the force. The barrier held fast… until Subaru's body flared with blue chakra, her eyes turning blue with slit pupils and her canine teeth elongating. The barrier slowly began to give way, and the tip of Subaru's fist made it through. And then she opened her fist, extending her fingers in every direction. The barrier broke, and Subaru quickly unleashed a point-blank magical-damage-set Divine Burst (as Nanoha called Subaru's Divine "Buster" variant). Ginga went flying back, skidding to a halt several meters away.

Subaru quickly rolled over to her sister's side. When Ginga's eyes opened, they were their normal blue-green.

"Hey Subaru," Ginga murmured weakly, "did you get the registration number of that cruiser that hit me?"

In response, Subaru hugged her, being careful not to do so too tightly due to her older sister's injuries.

"…Where are we?" Ginga asked.

"Would you believe Belka?" Subaru replied, drawing a reaction from Ginga that went from disbelief to – as she looked around – open shock. Subaru keyed her comm. "Knight Actual, this is Star-3. I have retrieved Star-5, alive and free."

"_Confirmed, Star-3_" Hood's voice replied. "_Some of our ships have already broken through the enemy lines and begun deploying troops and armor planetside. One of Raynor's frigates is a few kilometers south of your position; bring your sister there, and they'll patch her up._"

"Affirmative. Star-3 out."

"Was that…" Ginga looked confused and surprised. "Was that Fleet-Admiral Hood of the UNSC?"

"Yep" Subaru replied as she picked Ginga up. "Tia's friends showed up to help when we needed it most. I'll fill you in on the way."

With that, Subaru started rolling, carrying Ginga, to the south.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

11 SOEIV drop-pods landed in the midst of the battlefield, dropped off by the Phoenix League _Inferno_-class heavy cruiser _Timbuktu_. From six of them emerged the six other girls of Gamma Team, while the people who emerged from the other five were younger (well, four of them anyway).

"T-That actually wasn't as bad as I'd thought it would be" Erika said, checking her gear and shields as she readied her magical and chakra-based energies inside herself. "I mean, it was a little scary, but not utterly terrifying. W-With all the horror stories I'd heard…"

"Apparently the Phoenix League and the UNSC have both used the Forerunner tech salvaged from Onyx to dramatically improve the survival odds for drop-pods" Kaede replied, "making the ride just a little less harrowing in the process."

"It's still a hell of a trip, though" Erio said as he climbed out of his pod, making sure Strada was ready and in hand. "Plus, it's hard to get past the fact you're hurtling down from orbit."

"Yes, it's definitely not something you experience every day" Hanyū said as she finished helping Tim out of his pod and went to make sure Caro got out of hers safely.

"Okay, everyone," Shion said, "Remember the game plan. Kaede, Marie, Mai, Sarah, and I will go one way; Ahsoka, Hanyū, Erio, Caro, Erika, & Timmy will go the other. We'll each pick a spot where the droids and minor demons are thickest or where our soldiers are having trouble. Then… we go to town and start tearing through them. Any questions?"

"No, ma'am" the others chorused.

"Good. Let's move out!"

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

Jail Scaglietti looked up as the door to his inner sanctum was cleaved in two by a giant glowing sword of golden energy. The two halves were blasted inward, clattering to the floor inside. The blade's wielder stepped through the doorway, red eyes glaring at Jail.

"Ah, Fate-chan" Jail greeted with a malicious smile. "When I last saw you, you were a half-complete body in a cloning tank. My, how you've grown. It seems you've definitely inherited Precia's figure," he said as his eyes quickly traveled down and up her body before focusing on her face. "At least your Barrier Jacket is less… revealing than hers was when she was your age."

"I'm taking you in" Fate simply replied. "In peace…" she readied Bardiche, "or in pieces."

"So you _do _want a fight. A shame; I was hoping we could have a nice, calm, casual chat about things."

"I have nothing to say to you" she replied icily.

"I see…" Jail said. "Well then, let us skip the pleasantries…" His body flared with dark power, a pitch-black aura surrounding him as the sclera of his eyes turned black. "…and cut to the chase."

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

Battle droids fell by the dozens as a superhuman green-armored figure did what he did best, his customized MA5C firing armor-piercing 7.62x51mm FMJ rounds that punched through the weak armor plating of the mechanoid mooks that feebly attempted to halt his advance. His new & improved shields easily absorbed the damage from the few blaster bolts that managed to hit him, and his physical strength proved enough to destroy droids and gadget-drones with a single blow. The Master Chief switched to his M45 shotgun as he ran for the automated factory that forged and deployed gadget drones and battle droids. He blew away several, including a Destroyer Droid that failed to deploy its shield in time, and came up close to the control panel he'd been making a beeline for. As soon as he made physical contact with it, Cortana went to work, hacking in and working her magic. Within seconds, warning klaxons began to sound as explosions began to cascade throughout the foundry. The Chief turned and walked away, the droid forging machinery going up in flames and sparks behind him.

"This is Spartan-117" he reported over the comm. channel. "Droid factory neutralized. Proceeding to the portal chamber. Out."

With that, he set off in the direction of the section of the ship that held the portals that allowed demon soldiers to come through.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

Vita staggered slightly, panting for breath, as she made her way down the corridor that led to the engine room. Her status as a living program – with cells made of solidified magic and data instead of organic components and molecules – meant she was much tougher than a base organic, but even so, the hole that had been punched through her upper torso had taken a lot out of her. Her regenerative powers would take _weeks _to fully repair it without external assistance, and that's if she survived whatever else this mission threw at her in her weakened state. What's more, she was running low on mana and stamina, and the omnipresent AM Field in the ship was not helping matters.

As she stumbled through the door, she found herself in a huge, dark, cavernous room, lit by a humongous crystal in the center – the power core. She took several steps forward… and several semi-transparent cubes popped up all around – security drones, surrounding her, all of them charging directed-energy weapons. Vita gripped the cracked hilt of Graf Eisen.

"Bring it on" she snarled.

The first few drones made ready to fire… when suddenly, bolts of fire magic hit them, destroying them. This was followed by a very large Fire-type _Sagitta Magica _barrage that wiped the rest of them out. Vita heard a person touch down behind her.

"Wow, Nanoha-san was right" Teana said. "You don't look too good at all right now."

"Oh, shut up" Vita replied. "What're you doing here anyway? Aren't you supposed to be helping Nanoha right now?"

"She's got it handled" Teana said. "Her and her two little friends, presently semi-fused to her shoulders."

After a few seconds, Vita remembered what Nanoha's summoning contract was, and that she'd been training and meditating for "something" for a while now, and her eyes widened. "No way…" she muttered. "Are you telling me… she's…"

"The newest student of _Myōbokuzan_" Teana finished. "Nanoha-san has become just like Naruto-kun and Jiraiya-sama: a Sage."

"Unreal…" Vita murmured. "As if she wasn't overpowered enough before…"

"So…" Teana turned to face the giant crystal thing. "This is the power core, huh?"

"Yep" Vita replied. "That's it."

"Well then, let's get to work. No offense, but you're half-dead on your feet, so let me do most of the heavy lifting, okay?"

"Fine with me. I'm getting too old for this shit."

Teana took a second to smirk at hearing these words from a girl who, though 449 years old chronogically, had the body of an eight-year-old. Then she gathered her chakra and began forming hand seals.

"_Katon: Gōenkyū_!"

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

Quattro went skidding back along the floor, her arms aching from using her sword to deflect a Sage-Mode-supercharged Accel Shooter. She watched as Nanoha and Vivio charged at each other, lashing out with simultaneous punches. Both of them narrowly dodged, fists brushing past each other's heads… and then an invisible force slammed Vivio in the face, sending her tumbling back through the air, smashing into the wall. She growled as she pulled herself free. Neither of them had been able to deal even a single decisive blow on Nanoha; she either dodged them with her incredible new speed, blocked them with her extraordinary durability, countered them with her own crushingly powerful blows, or one or both of the two summons perched on her shoulders intercepted with their abilities. Even with Vivio and Quattro working together, they could barely keep up. Nanoha sported a few surface wounds, but that was it. Vivio, empowered by the _Saint's Cradle _and the Relic inside her, was still going strong in terms of stamina, but even with her newfound daemonic power Quattro was starting to run low.

Quattro snarled as she gripped her blade tightly, immersing herself deeper in Darkness, her black aura intensifying as her hair began to turn to a silvery color. With a war-cry, she rushed at Nanoha, striking with renewed vigor. Nanoha used Raising Heart to block and parry the blows, taking notice of the cyborg's sudden increase in overall ability that came with her being further subsumed in Darkness. Vivio joined in, and Nanoha began to have trouble fending both of them off at once. Fortunately, Fukasaku came to her aid, firing off a _Zessenzan _that forced the duo to break off or be bisected.

"Nanoha-chan," Shima said, "I think there might be a link between Vivio-chan's current state and that other one."

"You think so?" Nanoha replied.

"It could make sense" Fukasaku added. "Also, she's getting stronger. For both those reasons, we need to take her out quickly."

Nanoha nodded. "Agreed. This one… she enjoys the suffering of others, and she has daemonic power within her. …She's too dangerous to be left alive."

With that, Nanoha moved, engaging Vivio and Quattro in close combat. After several seconds, she managed to land an open palm strike into the center of Vivio's torso, and several Sage-Mode-enhanced Bind spells sprang up, wrapping around Vivio and anchoring her to the floor. Then, she turned her attention to Quattro, lashing out with several punches that launched compressed bursts of Force that smacked into the cyborg, pushing her back. She finished with a haymaker that Quattro blocked with her sword… which shattered under the force, sending her tumbling back. Quattro got to her feet… and looked up to see Nanoha coming down towards her, a Shadow Clone having just finished forming a _massive _sphere of swirling energy.

"This is for what you've done to Vivio! _Senpō: Ōdama Rasengan_!"

The full-strength shields that Quattro called up gave way under the attack, and with a final push Nanoha shattered them and hit her with the _jutsu_. Quattro only had a second to scream before the extra-large _Rasengan _consumed her, detonating with enough tightly-focused force to grind/drill a hole down through the ship, stopping less than 20 meters from punching a hole in the ventral hull.

Nanoha descended to the ground, looking down the hole, extending her Sage Mode senses and confirming that Quattro had indeed been killed by the attack. She heard her Binds breaking nearby, and looked to see Vivio, still in her adult form, eyes squeezed shut and holding a hand to her head. Hopeful, Nanoha took a few steps toward her.

"Vivio…?" she said.

The other girl's eyes snapped open, and she looked Nanoha in the eyes… as her body lurched toward her.

"Mama! Run!"

Nanoha barely brought her shield up in time, blocking a few blows before Vivio leapt back.

"I can't…" Vivio muttered, her tone that of a scared child. "I can't stop… The ship's automated defense program is controlling my body… The relic inside me…"

"This just became more complicated…" Fukasaku muttered.

"…Whatever it takes…" Nanoha tightened her grip on Raising Heart. "Vivio… I will save you!"

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

The sextet stood atop a hill, looking out at the horde of Gadget Drones.

"Here they come…" Timmy said.

"Ready, guys?" Ahsoka asked.

"Yes, ma'am!" the other five replied.

Timmy's hands and Erio's Device crackled with lightning energy, Caro's Device-gloves glowed, her little dragon Friedrich built up fire in his mouth, and Erika readied a Kig-Yar energy cutlass in her dominant hand as a Vetus-style magic circle formed beneath her feet. Ahsoka nodded to Hanyū, who flew up a few dozen feet and held her hands in front of her chest. After several seconds, the _Jinton _attack formed, and she let it fly. The resulting explosion blew away nearly two-dozen Gadget Drones, but the rest kept coming.

"Scrap them!" Ahsoka shouted, drawing her dual lightsabers. She charged, and the others followed suit.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

"_Karyū Issen_!"

With a single attack, scores of aerial Gadget Drones were obliterated. Signum hovered high over the battlefield; her hair had turned a pinkish bronze, her eyes were pale violet, her Barrier Jacket had turned purple, and four wings of fire hovered near her upper back. True to Zest's prediction, she and Agito had proven quite compatible, the little Unison Device amazed by the level of synchronization their merger had.

Far below, Zest carved through Type-1 Gadget Drones and B1 battle droids with ease, his Device-halberd cleaving through their armored metal hides like they were wet tissue paper. He looked up as he saw several of Lutecia's summons coming, and prepared himself… only for the summons to begin attacking the droids.

"_Mission accomplished_" Cinque reported over the comm. "_Megane-san's stasis pod is aboard a PLF medical dropship and bound for Raynor's frigate _Blunt Dagger_. We're on our way to add our capabilities to the fights in the field. Cinque out._"

Zest grinned. That was one more weight off his shoulders. Seconds later, Ulan Void-Jumped in nearby, adding his abilities to the cause, and even more droids were felled. The tide was turning.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

The _Starshot_'s particle-beam cannon bored/burned a hole through a droid heavy cruiser from port bow to starboard stern, setting off a cascade of explosions that ripped the enemy vessel apart. The Sangheili light cruiser _Perilous Journey _took down a droid corvette, fighting despite the burning rents in its hull. The Phoenix League carrier _Escherius _rescued several escape pods – including the command staff – of the wrecked UNSC frigate _Johnston_. The main cannon of the _Purity's Blade _blew away a frigate and heavily damaged a destroyer with the same shot, while the Protoss supercarrier's Interceptors continued to cut down on enemy fighter numbers. Scaglietti's droid fleet was losing badly, being dealt vastly disproportionate casualties by the coalition armada.

On the bridge of the _Infinity_, Fleet-Admiral Hood looked at the holo-table's detailed projection of the _Saint's Cradle_, still sitting in the "back" of the battlefield. The dreadnaught had ceased all offensive actions, and it had stopped moving as well, its primary power core destroyed, leaving it running on its significantly less-capable backup reactors. Its shields were still up, and Cortana's progress reports indicated the vessel was still infested with hostiles (though they were being ground down rapidly), but the _Cradle _was no longer posing any threat to the coalition fleet.

'Let's just hope the strike team can finish what they've started' Hood thought.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

The fight continued. Vivio, being controlled by the ship's defense program, could not break through Nanoha's defenses, but neither could Nanoha break through hers. Every time they got in close, Shima kept trying to detect the relic inside Vivio, to no avail. The two stood several meters apart, both of them panting.

"Nanoha…" Vivio said. "Please… Leave me… Get off this ship and blow it to kingdom come."

"I can't!" Nanoha replied. "I'm not leaving you!"

"You _have_ to! There's nothing you can do! Besides, I… I'm not even real… I'm not worth saving…"

"V-Vivio…"

"I'm just a tool, created from the genetic material of the Saint-Queen Olivie to power this ship. That's all I am. That's all I exist to do – be forced to command a dark titan to ravage worlds and kill people. I'm just a weapon. All that time I was with you and Fate, I was just g-gathering data, t-to become stronger…" Tears began to build up in her eyes. "As long as I exist, you and everyone else are in danger. It would've been better if… if I were never created at all!"

"Please…" Nanoha pleaded softly. "Don't say such terrible untruths. I refuse to believe you're fake, when I can see how your suffering and pain and sadness are so terribly real. You're not just a tool or a weapon. I know that there's more to you than that; I felt it during our time together – your happiness, your love… You're not a weapon. You're Vivio, the girl who won't eat her green beans and cries when she trips & falls. You're Vivio, the little girl who pats me on the head when I'm feeling sad, and cuddles up to me and Fate at night. You're Vivio…" she looked up, tears in her eyes and a smile on her face. "My daughter."

At this, Vivio's own tears finally fell.

"Tell, me, Vivio… What do you really want?"

"I… I… I wanna go back to that! I wanna go home with you and Fate-mama! I want to spend time with you and Fate and Erika and everyone else, be part of your family! I… Nanoha-mama… Please… save me!"

"As I said before… I'll do whatever it takes!"

The two rushed in again, meeting in the middle. Upon contact, as Vivio's ship-controlled body tried to force its way through Nanoha's defense, Shima searched again. Following a sudden hunch, she extended her search lower than before, and her eyes widened.

"I found it!" she cried, and then spat out a glob of toad-oil that clung to and marked the Barrier Jacket portion above a spot on Vivio's lower belly. Nodding, Nanoha leapt away, leaving Vivio's body held in place by several Binds.

"Vivio…" Nanoha said as she brought her hand back, blue chakra and bright pink motes of light rapidly spiraling into it. "This is going to hurt a little, okay? But after this, I promise we can go home."

Vivio nodded. Nanoha rushed forward again, the spiraling sphere of chakra in her left hand beginning to glow a bright pink as a massive amount of magic was melded into it. Just as the binds shattered, Nanoha reached Vivio and thrusted the attack forward:

"Starlight Rasengan!-!"

The attack hit dead-on. Vivio groaned in pain as the magic/chakra sphere began forcing its way. Suddenly, the relic that had been implanted inside her womb spontaneously appeared outside of her body, being grinded into by the Starlight Rasengan. With a blast of released energy, the relic crystal shattered and exploded, sending both combatants flying in opposite directions.

Nanoha staggered to her feet, making her way through the 'dust' cloud. As she came through it, she spotted the little figure, pulling herself up using a chunk of rubble to brace herself.

"It's like you told me to, mama," Vivio said with a weak smile, back in her 5-year-old form. "I've got to be strong and stand on my own."

Nanoha rushed forward, embracing her exhausted little girl. After several seconds, she turned to Shima and Fukasaku, still perched on her shoulders.

"Thank you so much, you two" she said. "You can head home if you want. And I'm sorry if this caused either of you any trouble."

"Don't worry about it, dear" Shima replied. "We were glad to help!"

"Besides," Fukasaku added, "we couldn't have let you fight two opponents of such power by yourself. Especially with your adoptive daughter's life on the line."

"We'll let you be for now" Shima said. "Just call us if you need anything."

With that, the two Elder Toads disappeared in twin puffs of smoke. Nanoha's eyes returned to normal, and a second later she felt a sudden wave of exhaustion as the Sage energy left her, leaving her panting lightly. Vivio looked up.

"Are you okay, mama?" she asked.

"Yeah" Nanoha replied. "It's just that… I don't get tired when I'm in Sage Mode, but once I come out of it all the built-up exhaustion finally hits me."

The two felt a slight change in the ship's energy signature, as the lights briefly flickered.

"_All ships and personnel, this is Cortana_" the AI reported over the fleet-wide comm. channel. "_The Master Chief and I have reached the ship's control room and I am inside the systems. The portals allowing the netherrealm entities through to the material realm have been shut down, as have the ship's auto-defenses and shields, and the hostile VIs have been deleted. I'm sending shutdown codes to the surviving droids. The ship is ours. Repeat: the _Saint's Cradle_ is ours. _

Seconds later, two figures entered the room: Teana and Vita. Vivio gasped and went pale at the sight of Vita's current state, including the bloody hole in her chest (which had thankfully stopped bleeding due to Vita's healing factor).

"Don't worry, kid" Vita said, panting as she used Graf Eisen as a crutch. "It looks worse than it is."

"Actually no," Teana replied, "judging by what I can sense of you, I'd say it _is _about as bad as it looks. …I see you succeeded, Nanoha-san. Where's Quattro?"

Nanoha pointed to the hole in the floor.

"Ah. …I recognize that damage pattern. Damn, how big was _that _Rasengan?"

"_Strike team, this is Captain Miranda Keyes_" a familiar voice said over the comm. "_Our forces are mopping up the last few droid ships. _Forward unto Dawn _is docking with the _Saint's Cradle_, approximately 120 meters from your current position. Come on over; we'll get you patched up._"

Several minutes later, Nanoha and Teana flew up to the docking tube, the former carrying Vita and the latter Vivio. They quickly hurried across, handing the two injured girls over to the medics and starting for the bridge. Suddenly, however, they received a telepathic communication:

"_Nanoha!_" Fate shouted. "_I need help! Scaglietti's stronger than I anticipated! He's supercharged himself with that daemonic energy! I can't handle him alone any longer!_"

"Fate! Hang on! We're on our way down!"

Nanoha then keyed Capt. Keyes.

"Captain, there's been a change of plan. Fate's in trouble; Teana and I need to get groundside ASAP! I'm sending you the coordinates!"

"…_Roger that, Takamachi. Both of you get to the drop-pod bay. I'll get you there the quickest way possible._"

The two mages hurried down the corridors, reaching the drop bay. A handful of ODSTs saluted at their approach and gestured to two pods ready & waiting for them. They climbed aboard, and the pods sealed and moved downward into the launch tubes.

"Please…" Nanoha muttered as she felt her pod be launched, catching sight of Teana's nearby. "Let us be on time…"

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

Will they make it? Stay tuned for Part 3 of the Battle of Belka, next time!


	8. The Battle of Belka Part 3

Sorry about the wait; writer's block, reading through a couple other-people's stories I found, and playing through _Pokémon White 2_.

SEE FIRST CHAPTER FOR DISCLAIMERS

PLEASE READ & REVIEW, AND TEND TO THE TROPE & CHARACTER PAGES

**-**_**CHAPTER START**_**-**

**Single-Occupant Exoatmospheric Insertion Vehicle 279812-B2**

**High Orbit (and descending rapidly) over Belka**

Teana looked out through the forward viewscreen, watching the occasional distant explosion. According to the tactical data Cross Mirage was providing her with, Scaglietti's fleet had been utterly decimated. However, the few ships remaining were still putting up what fight they could. All the same, they wouldn't last much longer against the coalition armada. She turned her attention to a smaller screen that showed Nanoha, who was breathing a little hard and looked a bit tired.

"You okay, Takamachi?" she asked.

"_I'm fine_" Nanoha replied. "_Sage Mode took a lot out of me. But I'm not through yet. I can still fight. I __**have**__ to. Don't worry about me, Teana. I can do this._"

"Alright… Just be careful. And know that I'll be keeping an eye on your throughout this fight. If I see you showing unignorable signs of chakra exhaustion, I _will _make you sit the rest of it out."

"_Let's hope it doesn't come to that, then._"

Teana smirked. "Don't worry. If worse comes to worst, well, you're not the only one who's finally got a new trump card."

The two pods breached the atmosphere, continuing their descent. Soon, Teana felt the familiar lurch as the metal chute deployed, followed soon after by the rumbling and deceleration of the bottom thrusters. It wasn't long before the ride came to its end with a jolt, and seconds later the pod door was automatically blown off, landing a few meters away. She hopped out as the other pod's hatch blew, and Nanoha stepped out. They both extended their senses, trying to detect Fate's location.

This became unnecessary when Fate came flying out from a nearby structure, and not under her own power at that. Nanoha and Fate rushed over to her as she landed unsteadily on her feet, panting and holding a hand to her midsection. The cause became readily apparent when Jail Scaglietti flew out (under his own power, unlike Fate) and landed nearby. His body brimmed with dark power, a pitch-black aura surging around him like fire. His serrated blade was still grasped in his right hand, and his eyes showed the signs of Darkness corruption that Teana had come to recognize. Finally, his power level felt quite large; she could see how Fate would have trouble one-on-one.

"Ah, so you have backup now?" Scaglietti said. "It won't do you any good, though, especially as it looks like Takamachi-san has used up a good portion of her stamina. What are you doing down here, anyway? I supposed this means you ended up capturing Quattro and having to kill Olivie's clone?"

"I destroyed the relic within Vivio" Nanoha replied. "She's free. …And I killed Quattro."

At this, Scaglietti's expression changed, becoming calmly angry. Fate looked to Nanoha, noticing her breathing hard.

"Are you alright, Nanoha?" she asked. "Was the fight as tough as mine's been?"

"Nanoha-san went into Sage Mode" Teana replied, to Fate's shock. "She curb-stomped Quattro and the relic-controlled Vivio at the same time. But exiting Sage Mode tends to leave the practitioner very tired."

"And I don't think I have enough chakra to safely enter it again right now" Nanoha added. "I'll have to fight Scaglietti without it."

"Sir," Cross Mirage reported, "reports indicate Dark Templar Prelate Ulan has killed Numbers Cyborg Due."

At this, Jail's angry look worsened.

"Status of the other two?" Teana asked.

"Numbers Cyborg Uno has been captured, alive and without serious injury, by Prelate Ulan. Numbers Cyborg Sette was sighted retreating from the area, steering clear of the battles; she appears to be deliberately avoiding any interaction with either side, and is heading out into the ruins of a nearby Belkan city."

"Cinque did say that Sette's life and actions pretty much revolved around Tre" Fate said. "With her dead, Sette must feel… purposeless." There was a hint of empathy and pity in her tone.

"We can find her later" Nanoha said. "Right now we have a bigger problem to deal with."

Indeed they did, as Jail stepped toward them, his aura flaring. It seemed that, his mood soured by the deaths of his creations, he had decided to stop playing around and go for the kill. Teana, Nanoha, and Fate readied themselves, Devices in hand. Jail snarled as he gripped his sword in his left hand, the armored & clawed gauntlet on his left crackling with dark power.

(BOSS MUSIC: _Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep OST_ – "Extreme Encounters")

Teana struck first, firing a Fire-type _Sagitta Magica _barrage. Jail brought his gauntleted hand up, casting a shield spell that withstood the attack. Teana followed up with a _Katon: Gōkakyū_, the large fireball proving powerful enough to force Scaglietti to leap away a split-second before his shield shattered under the blow, the fire instantly reducing to ashes the dried grass he'd been standing on. He then fired a barrage of Darkness-type magic bolts at Fate, only for a bright pink shield-spell from Nanoha to deflect them. Teana swooped in, Mirage Longsword in hand, and started trying to fillet him. Jail managed to use his sword and his armored gauntlet to block her blows, though the latter was left with burnt gashes in it by the blade of superheated magical energy.

Fate made a sequence of hand-seals, and soon a half-dozen Lightning Hounds were racing across the ground at Scaglietti, who dispelled them with a wide swing of his darkness-enhanced sword. Nanoha fired off a _Doton: Doryūdan_, and Teana mixed some near-invisible _Fūton: Shinkūgyoku _wind-bullets in with the mini-cannonballs of dense earth. Jail thrust his right palm forward, and the gauntlet projected a shield… that only soaked up about ¾ of the damage before giving way, forcing him to brace himself and protect his face as the rest impacted him. Then, Nanoha, Fate, and Teana each unleashed a _Katon: Gōkakyū _at him simultaneously. The three-fireball explosion apparently engulfed him, the smoke obscuring him.

A burst of power blasted away the smoke to reveal Scaglietti, slightly singed but otherwise unharmed. He rushed at Nanoha, who brought Raising Heart up just in time to stop his strike. She put her family's swordsmanship skills to good use as she blocked and parried his attacks, finishing with a jab with the narrow end of her staff into his gut, followed by a good, solid thwack to the side of his head. He flash-stepped backwards away from her, and narrowly dodged a decapitating swing from Teana, countering with a knee to her face that briefly stunned her, but his attempt to strike her when she was vulnerable was foiled by Fate firing a Photon Lancer barrage at him, forcing him back.

"Okay, that's it!" Teana snarled, rubbing her lower jaw. "I've put up with enough crap these last few days! I don't care whether or not we can beat him without it; I'm making this guy my new technique's guinea pig!"

She made a cross with her index fingers, and three Shadow Clones formed around her. Nanoha turned to Fate.

"I don't know what Teana has planned," she said, "but I think she'll need a moment to get it ready. Help me cover her!"

"Right!" Fate replied, and then fired another Photon Lancer strike at Scaglietti. She and Nanoha charged him, forcing him on the defensive. A gust of wind kicked up on the battlefield, and soon Nanoha & Fate could hear a faint ringing sound behind them. After several seconds, Jail sent them both away with a pulse of dark power, and left them skidding a good distance, coming to a stop right next to Teana… and when they looked and saw what she was almost done forming, their eyes widened in shock.

"I've spent months working on this" Teana said as she finished forging the technique into its recognizable four-point form swirling rapidly to appear as a disc with a sphere-bulge in the center, the bell-like screech sounding out as she held it high. "Let's see if I've done it right! _Fūton: Rasenshuriken_!"

Fate & Nanoha quickly overcame their shock, looked to each other, and nodded, and when Teana took off, flying in Scaglietti's direction, they did too, pulling ahead so as to maneuver him into position. Jail dodged a swing from Bardiche Zanbar and blocked a jabbing strike from Raising Heart, only to take a roundhouse kick to the back from Fate that pushed him directly into Teana's path. The split-second before impact, Fate did her best to replicate Caro's Defense Boost spell on Teana's right arm, and at the same time Cross Mirage focused all of its and the Barrier Jacket's inherent defensive magic into said limb as well. Though by a narrow margin, it proved enough to protect the arm from recoil damage.

Teana's whole body shook at the moment of impact, but that was nothing compared to the shock that Jail got hit with. A split-second after contact, the _Rasenshuriken _detached from Teana's "grip", moving forward like the propeller of an old-time aircraft, pushing Jail along for the ride, grinding into him. Nanoha, Fate, and Teana immediately got as much distance as they could, and turned to watch just as the hyper-concentrated Wind-chakra construct detonated with incredible force. Jail Scaglietti was trapped at the center of a gigantic blue-and-white sphere that gouged a perfectly circular hole in the ground, and kicked up a great gust of wind. Inside, hundreds of millions of microscopic blades of Wind chakra began rapidly slicing and piercing into Jail's body on a cellular level, tearing him apart bit by bit.

"Hot damn!" Teana pumped her fist. "It worked! I did it!"

"You certainly did…" Fate replied, in awe as she watched the devastation.

After about a minute, the sphere dissipated, and a lone figure – missing several chunks – plummeted to the center of the resulting crater. The three mages flew in cautiously, inspecting their target. Jail had several bloody chunks missing, exposed internals, his sword had landed in a twisted, gouged heap a few meters away and his gauntlet was shredded to reveal exposed bone beneath. But he was still conscious. Teana walked up to right beside him, the other two hanging back a little ways.

"H-How…" he whispered in a ragged tone, lungs slowly filling with blood. "My… My new order…"

"Will not come to pass" Teana replied.

"All I… ever wanted…"

"It's something you really should've known: we don't always get what we want. Hell, I have a bit of a crush on Fate-san, but I don't get to act on that, either. You killed innocent people, made an alliance with devils… and now you pay the price for it. Now shut up and die, you prick."

And he did. Teana turned and began to walk away… and saw Fate with a noticeable blush on her face and an unidentifiable expression on Nanoha's. Teana somehow went pale and blushed at the same time.

"Y-Y-You heard that, didn't you?"she squeaked out.

'Stupid, stupid, STUPID!-!' was what she was saying inside her own head. 'Stupid mouth, stupid hormones, Stupid Sexy Fate!'

"Hmmm…" Nanoha replied, stroking her chin. "Y'know, I'm always trying to talk Signum into a threesome with me & Fate, or a foursome with me, Fate, and Yūno. She's never taken the offer, though. Hey Teana, you like guys too, right?"

"N-Nanoha!" Fate shouted/squeaked, her face beet-red.

For her part, Teana zombie-shuffled away from Jail's body, face red, starting to pass the two other mages as they nonverbally debated. As she passed, Fate reached out and grabbed hold of her sleeve gently but firmly, and pulled her in. Slowly, she brought the girl into a hug, which Nanoha then gleefully joined in, sandwiching Teana between her and Fate.

"When we get back to the _Infinity_, I better find Yūno and tell him to come over to our place back on Midchilda in the next couple of days."

"Nanoha!-!" the other two shouted.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Five Minutes Later**

With a swing of a lightsaber, the last droid fell. Ahsoka was panting and slouching a little, but not too bad. She turned around.

"Well, that's all of them" she said. "How you guys doing?"

Erio, Caro, Timmy, and Erika were in varying positions of "I'm so tired that I can't feel my legs", Erio and Erika using each other as support to avoid falling to the ground, while Caro was on her back, looking up at the clear blue sky, and Timmy was sitting/leaning against the wrecked casing of a Type-1 droid.

"Oh come on" Ahsoka said, putting her hands on her hips. "It wasn't _that _bad."

"You…" Timmy pointed at her "have _freakish _stamina. Freakish, I say! How are you still able to keep going?-!"

"Jedi conditioning" she replied.

"I… I t-think I'm chakra-exhausted" Erika panted. "Just a little, though."

"That was worse than Vita-san's harshest training runs" Erio muttered.

"My arms feel like lead and my legs feel like jelly" moaned Caro.

Ahsoka sighed. "It wasn't that bad, you guys; there were only about 2,200 of them."

In response, all four groaned simultaneously. A few seconds later, Hanyū floated down, hands on her knees as she panted.

"Oh, not you too" Ahsoka said.

"Sorry" Hanyū replied breathlessly. "_Jinton _is pretty chakra-intensive to use. I'm fine, really."

Soon, Gamma 2 through 7 arrived on scene.

"Wow, what happened to you guys?" Sarah asked.

"Ahsoka just dragged us into helping her take out about 2,000 droids" Erio groaned. "We're all exhausted."

"I got the highest number of destroyed droids after her, though" Erika chimed in proudly.

"Really?" Hanyū asked.

"{Yes}" Erio's Device Strada replied. "{I kept count}."

Not long after, two more groups showed up. The first was Signum, Zest, Ulan, Subaru, Cinque, Nove, and Wendi; the second was Nanoha, Fate, and Teana.

"Master?" Shion was shocked by her teacher's appearance. "When'd you get here?"

"About halfway in" Ulan replied. "Killed the Cyborg known as Due, and then helped secure young Lutecia's return to the Light."

"_Ground teams, this is _Hyperion" Matt Horner's voice came over the comms. "_Just thought you'd want to know, we have teams aboard the _Saint's Cradle_, sweeping out what little resistance remains. She's taken a lot of damage, but nothing irreparable. …I think that, in about a year's time or so, the TSAB will have a new warship._"

The group all looked around at each other.

"…Awesome" Subaru finally said.

"Hey, where's the Doctor?" Wendi asked. "Weren't you supposed to be fighting him, Fate-san?"

"He's dead" Nanoha replied. "Apparently, just as my "trump card" was Sage Mode, Teana's was the _Rasenshuriken_."

The girls of Gamma, and the kids, all jaw-dropped at this.

"S-Sage Mode…" Caro murmured, eyes wide.

"_Rasen…shuriken_…" Kaede whispered, in mild shock.

"Uh, guys?" Hanyū – now hovering a few meters up – called out, looking out at the horizon. "We've got a problem here!"

Everyone turned to where she was looking… and felt dread as they saw and felt the _huge _army of demon soldiers heading for them.

"Here we go again…" Mai muttered, readying her MA5C.

Reluctantly, everyone readied themselves as the horde approached. Tim staggered to his feet, bringing up an energy dagger he'd stolen from a Commando Droid. It winked out. He shook it a few times and thumped it, and it sputtered in & out of activity. Marie noticed and grinned.

"What's the matter, Timmy? Havin' trouble keepin' it up? Don't worry; that happens to everybody!"

After a few seconds, Timmy blushed, while Erika shot her sister a dirty look. Sarah facepalmed at her sibling's comment, but couldn't stop the amused smile from forming on her face. Nanoha couldn't stop a laugh from slipping out, while Kaede just rolled her eyes.

"We're _all _gonna end up hospitalized with chakra exhaustion and mana depletion by the time today's over, aren't we?" Ahsoka said.

"Most likely" Teana replied.

"_Ground Teams, this is Knight Actual_" Fleet-Admiral Hood reported. "_We see your predicament, and help is on the way. Apparently, some more of Lanstar's other-realm friends have found a way to join us._"

Just as the first wave of the horde drew close, a huge teleportation circle appeared between the heroes and the demons. Undaunted, the demons fired a storm of arcing Darkness projectiles that came in toward the heroes, like a storm of archers' arrows. A blur of motion emerged from the pillar of light emerging from the teleportation circle, taking position in front of the group. With a swing of her greatsword, her power was thrown outward, cancelling out the barrage like it'd never existed. She turned around to face the group, sword resting on her shoulders, as Teana's jaw dropped just a little bit.

"Hey, Teana" Asuna said with a grin. "It's been a while. How ya doin'?"

"H… H… How are you here, Asuna?" Teana said, dumbstruck.

"Tapped into the World Tree's mana supply along with reverse-engineering some of the magitech that Chao had brought back from whenever she was. After that, it was just a little matter of homing in on your energy signature – no small feat, I tell you – and here we are. Just in the nick of time, it looks like."

"We?" Marie asked. "Who else is here?"

A pack of flying demons swooped in… only to be cut down by a blur of white. The blur in question landed in front of the group, crouched, sword drawn, and wings out. Setsuna stood up, sheathing her sword, and gave a smile & a nod to Teana.

"Setsuna-san, too…" Teana muttered. "What, did you bring the entirety of _Ala Alba_?"

"Yes, actually."

Kaede Nagase's sudden chiming in, having appeared amongst the group, right behind Kaede Fuyō and Teana, from out of nowhere and with no-one noticing, made everyone jump in fright. The tall kunoichi simply stood there with her usual, squinty smile as she waited for them to regain their composure.

"You snuck up on _me_" Ahsoka said, hand to her heart. "_ME! _A _Jedi_! How do you _do _that?-!"

"She is vengeance…" Marie murmured dramatically. "She is the night…"

"She is _tall_" Sarah finished.

"Hey, c'mon, she's only one and quarter inches taller than you."

"You don't understand. I've _never _met a girl taller than me. _Ever._"

"Hello, there"

Once more, everyone startled as Mana Tatsumiya appeared, standing right next to Sarah.

"Would you guys quit doing that?-!" Marie snapped.

Sarah, meanwhile, felt something she couldn't quite describe upon having to look up to meet the 6'1" Mana's eyes.

"I feel a little inadequate all of a sudden" the blonde murmured.

The pillar of light finally faded, revealing that the rest of _Ala Alba _had indeed showed up: Negi, Kotarō, Konoka, Chisame, Kazumi, Sayo, Kū Fei, Yūna, Makie, Ako, Akira, Ayaka, Natsumi, Nodoka, Yue, Haruna, and…

"Is… Is that Evangeline?" Shion asked.

"Yep" Kaede N. replied.

"…She's free of the School Hell curse?" Mai asked.

"Yep" Asuna replied. "Nagi-san and Negi lifted it, after they and Arika-sama were dead certain that she wouldn't cause trouble. I'll give you the details later. For now, though, you folks just hang back, kick up your feet, and let us handle this. From the looks of it, you've done enough today."

"And if you're wondering," Kaede N. added, "the rest of Team 3A is presently up on the _Starshot_, while Fate-kun and the _Ala Rubra _crew are still back on our Earth, though we've set up a link with the _Starshot _so any of us can cross over whenever we need to."

"…Aren't Evangeline-san or Negi-kun just going to wipe them all out with one blow?" Mai asked.

"They've started doing what Teana does" Asuna replied. "They deliberately hold back so it won't be too easy; there's no fun without a challenge, they've both said."

"Amen to that" Teana chimed in.

Negi's aura flared to life, a raging white flame surrounding him. Among the approaching demons, mutterings of "Oh shit, it's the Thousand Master's kid!" and the like could be heard. The other members of the group followed suit in preparing for battle, and the curb-stomp began in earnest.

**-**_**15 MINUTES LATER**_**-**

"Negi~!"

The very uncharacteristically girlish squeal from Ahsoka was all the warning Negi got before she tackle-hugged him. He quickly gathered himself, though, and hugged her back. Nodoka, Yue, and Haruna rushed over and joined in the cuddlepile, holding onto Ahsoka as tightly as she was holding onto Negi. At the same time, Asuna, Setsuna, and Konoka walked over to the others.

"That was impeccable timing on you guys' parts" Marie said.

"Hey, I've got experience in being the Big Damn Hero, swooping in to save someone's ass in the nick of time" Asuna replied with a grin. "This was nothin' new."

"Still, it was most fortuitous that you arrived when you did" Signum said. "Granted, I still have plenty of energy left in me, but I most certainly cannot say the same for most of the rest of us."

"Yeah, that could've been close" Sarah added.

Asuna sized up the new face. "So _you're _Sarah" she said. "Hmph. Taller than I thought." She looked to the shorter figure half-hiding behind Fate. "And that means you must be…"

"Ah, Erika-chan!" Konoka sorta-squealed. "Wow, you're even more adorable in person!"

Erika blushed at this. "T-T-Thank you…"

"Oh dear, you're all scratched up. …Hey, _all _of you are, actually."

"It's been more than 10 minutes, Konoka-san" Shion replied. "I'm afraid they'll all have to heal the hard way."

Nearby, the group hug finally disengaged, Ahsoka reluctantly letting Negi, Nodoka, and Yue go and strike up a conversation with Subaru, while Haruna stuck near Ahsoka.

"You've missed out on some fun times, 'soka-chan" Haruna said with a grin as she threw her arm around the Togrutan's shoulders. "Let's just say that we've taken that 'Negi-kun's destined to have multiple lovers' prediction and made it reality."

Ahsoka's eyes widened. "You mean, you've… N-Not that I mind sharing – I don't mind at all how many 'partners' Negi has – but… H-How many?"

"Well~…" Haruna made a long, drawn-out, overdramatic pose. "Let's see, now… There's you, Nodoka, and Yue, of course. Over the past six or so weeks since you guys left, a bunch of other girls have… consummated their feelings for Negi-kun. There's Evangeline, and Makie, and Ayaka, and Chachamaru, and Kaede, and me-"

"You?"

"Hey, he's cute! And he's _really _skillful, too~. Anyway, there's also Asuna, and Chisame, and Kazumi, and Anya, and Luna, and Ako, and Setsuna & Konoka – alone with him _and _threesomes, I might add –, and Kū, and Akira…"

"…I'm s-sharing him with 18 girls?"

"Well, those are all the ones who have any degree of significant interest in him… yes, that includes me. But we've also introduced him to the wonderful concept of Friends With Benefits! If you include that category, we can also add Zazie, and Emily, and Colette, and Satomi, and Chizuru – though she mainly spends her "fun time" with Natsumi and Kotarō –, and Yūna, and Takane, and the Cheerleader Trio, and the Narutaki Twins. And the amazing part? Even after all the 'action' Negi-kun has gotten and is still getting, he's still remained pretty much the same boy we've come to know and love! Of course, he's also very tender and loving and snuggly with girls he's "been with", where the 'old' Negi would've been embarrassed by displays of affection, but he even manages to make that as adorable as he is!"

"H-Huh. …S-So, what kinda stuff have you girls been doing with him?"

Haruna gave her usual big grin.

As the bespectacled artist began to regale Ahsoka with tantalizing details, Nanoha, Fate, & Teana continued explaining things to Asuna, Konoka, and Setsuna, with Subaru and the girls of Gamma listening in.

"So we have _another _mysterious artificial human girl with different-colored eyes and extraordinary magical special power?" Asuna asked. "…Cool."

"Yeah," Teana replied, "though Vivio's only five."

"And Ayaka has this black silk blindfold and this special little feather she likes to use on him…" Haruna could be heard in the background, regaling Ahsoka with tales of "Negi Fun Times".

"Wait, they had a _five-year-old _hooked up to a warship?" Setsuna asked.

"Yeah" Nanoha replied. "And they… changed her, and made her fight me. In that altered form, she was extremely powerful. I had to use Sage Mode to win."

"Negi looked _so cute_!" Haruna squeed in the background. "I have _got _to show you the pictures we took!"

"You can use Sage Mode?-!" Asuna exclaimed with shock.

"It's a sorta-long story" Teana replied.

"Moreover," Setsuna added in, "after seeing how much… vitriol you had for Takamachi-san, I'm surprised to see you being all… buddy-buddy with her."

"We… worked out our differences."

"By that," Nanoha said, "she means that after we beat each other senseless, Shamal-san explained to Teana the _real _reasons behind my training methods?"

"Which are?" Asuna asked.

"I'll tell you later" Teana replied.

"And then we found a spell that could turn Negi-kun into an anatomically-complete girl!" Haruna was continuing in the background. "That opened up a whole new avenue of possibilities! Man, Setsuna & Konoka had a _lot _of fun when we found that one… and so did I!"

"After we freed Vivio and killed the Cyborg controlling her," Nanoha continued, "we came down here, and helped Fate-chan take on Jail Scaglietti, the man responsible for it all."

"What happened to him?" Konoka asked.

"Teana's brand-new _Rasenshuriken _happened" Fate replied.

"You're kidding!" Asuna said. "You can pull _that _off now, Teana?-!"

"It was a lot of work" Teana replied. "I've been working on it since halfway during our Mundus Magicus ordeal. This was a field test. …I'd say it worked."

"Oh yeah" Nanoha said. "Definitely."

"And _then_…" Haruna was still going. "We found something called the _futanari _spell! And we learned that, as a boy or as a girl, Negi likes 'taking it' as much as he likes 'giving it'!"

"So what do we do now?" Asuna asked.

"Head back to Midchilda, I guess" Teana replied. "Patch up our wounds, get the Bureau in talks with the other groups who showed up here to help us take down Scaglietti, relax a bit, train more once we've recovered from all this…"

"Yeah, I just wanna fall into my bed and not get out of it for half a day" Erio chimed in.

"Are you guys coming with?" Teana asked.

"Of course!" Asuna replied. "We can come and go as we please now, thanks to the link we've set up with the _Starshot_! We know something big's coming, and we'll be with you to face it when it shows up!"

Teana smiled. "Thanks, guys."

Minutes later, as they all waited for the dropships to arrive, Subaru and Kaede F. walked up to Haruna.

"May I help you, ladies?" Haruna asked. "Kae-chan and… oh, Subaru-san! So we meet in person!"

"Hehe, yeah" the blue-haired girl chuckled nervously as she rubbed the back of her head. Kaede was twiddling her fingers nervously. "So, um…"

"Mmyeeesssss~?"

"We… overheard you talking, and… We were wondering…"

"Could you maybe…" Kaede continued. "Give us the specs on that… that one spell you told Ahsoka about?"

Haruna startled for a second, before her face than shifted to its usual Cheshire-Cat Grin. Boy, were Teana and Marie in for a not-unpleasant surprise.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Midchilda**

**Three Hours Later**

The _Starshot _and the majority of the coalition fleet had returned to Midchilda, bringing Gamma Team, the RF6 personnel, Team 3A, and the rest of the "core" group. A small portion of the armada had remained at Belka to secure the planet. The UNSC, the Sangheili Alliance, Raynor's Raiders, the Protoss, and the Phoenix League had all extended the TSAB a formal offer to join the union, to become part of the multi-way politico-military & trade alliance between multiple sovereign powers; the Bureau's higher-ups were strongly considering the offer, and all signs pointed to them accepting. Already, the truth behind the High Council's machinations had been revealed by UNSC ciphers combing their records. The (remaining) leadership of the TSAB were disgusted and horrified at just how much the shadowy trio had done (and that they had defied the natural order – and TSAB law – by making themselves into brains in jars to escape death and continue their plots). The fact that Scaglietti's underling had killed them on his orders was one _good _thing the man had done for the Bureau.

On Belka, the Phoenix League had found Sette, curled up inside the ruins of an old house, dead to the world. They had taken her in, and once the depth of her mental status was located they sent her off to a rehabilitation and psychotherapy division rather than prison. Hopefully the Rigellians would be able to help her reconstruct a working psyche that _wasn't _based solely on interactions with one single person.

A team of engineers and… well, Engineers were working on repairing Riot Force 6's headquarters; in the meantime, a nearby hotel had been provided free of charge to the personnel in question. At the moment, Negi, Ahsoka, Nodoka, Yue, and Haruna sat atop the roof, looking out at the slightly overcast sky and the damaged yet still living city below.

"Right" Haruna said. "It's decided. Tonight, Negi gets Ahsoka; she needs it bad after going six weeks without him. And tomorrow, he gets all four of us~!"

As she threw her arms around the two in question, both blushed.

"Um…" Ahsoka said. "C-Can he _handle _four girls at once?"

"Believe me, he _can_" Yue replied, Nodoka nodding. Negi blushed, but couldn't stop the smile from forming, as well.

Meanwhile, in the thankfully-undamaged medical wing of RF6's HQ, Shamal was addressing her five newest patients.

"Well, all five of you have light-to-mild chakra exhaustion and mana depletion" she said, looking at Erio & Caro sitting together in the same bed, at Timmy & Erika doing the same the next bed over, and at Vita, still in her bloodstained Barrier Jacket, on the third bed. "So you're all going to be staying in my care for at least four days. You, Vita, have your injuries on top of that, so you'll probably be here for at least 10."

"Great…" the redhead muttered, seemingly heedless of the hole in her chest.

"Oh, one more thing you five need to know about" Shamal continued. "It… doesn't quite apply to Erika-chan for reasons you'll soon learn, but all of you fall under a certain age that means there's a standard protocol at this hospital that applies to all of you."

"Uh, I'm 449 years old, technically" Vita said.

"Chronologically," Shamal replied with a grin, "but physically you're eight, and that's what matters. Now, then…"

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Unknown Location**

**Outside Normal Space-Time**

"_Scaglietti failed_" the underling reported."_He was overpowered, and his army and fleet are in ruins._"

"**The interference of the other realms came out of nowhere**" Kadak replied. "**And Lanstar & her allies proved more powerful than anticipated.**"

"_So what now, sir?_"

Kadak grinned. "**We take a more… direct role in things.**"

**-**_**CHAPTER END**_**-**

This is NOT the end of Book 9. The demons' next move starts next chapter. Stay tuned.


	9. So Much For The Vacation

SEE FIRST CHAPTER FOR MOST DISCLAIMERS

_KINGDOM HEARTS _IS THE PROPERTY OF SQUARE-ENIX

PLEASE READ & REVIEW, AND TEND TO THE TROPE & CHARACTER PAGES

**-**_**CHAPTER START**_**-**

**Cranagan, Midchilda**

**One Week after the Battle of Belka**

After the hectic craziness that had suddenly hit a little while ago, everyone was quite happy to have some down time to recover and get acquainted with new arrivals. Ginga had felt rather faint once everything that had transpired was explained to her, especially Subaru being a _Jinchūriki_, but she came to accept it. She was out of the hospital after four days, as were "the quartet" (Timmy, Caro, Erika, and Erio); Vita, however, still had a few more days to come of being in Shamal's care, to her frustrated mortification (made worse by Hayate insisting on participating in caretaking, also having taken "a few" pictures "for posterity"); Fate, meanwhile, had greatly enjoyed mothering/doting on Erio & Caro during their stay while recovering.

Negi and Timmy got along like brothers after very little time, as did (slightly surprisingly) Kotarō and Erio. Signum and Setsuna had set up a sparring match, leaving Signum amazed that the 14-year-old _hanyō _had become so skilled while so young; Setsuna, in comparison, developed the utmost respect for Signum, referring to her with naught but the most formal and respectful titles (usually "_onee-sama_"), which left the ageless swordswoman hard-pressed to conceal her fluster and light embarrassment at being addressed so, though she was starting to get used to it as the two began teaching each other some of their respective styles.

Kaede Nagase and Sarah got along quite well, Shamal and Chizuru were practically kindred spirits, Konoka & Caro became almost like sisters, and Negi's inherent cuteness very quickly won over pretty much every female in the entirety of RF6, their motherly/sisterly instincts kicking in with the kind, polite, and adorable boy, even though they knew full well what he was capable of magically. At the same time, Erika quickly found herself being fawned over by the 3A Girls due to her own innocent cuteness, which she didn't terribly mind; Chizuru especially, due to the motherly girl's experience volunteering at daycares, was well-received by the girl. The fact Yue and Kaede N. had already started teaching her some new tricks helped, too. Also, Anya had struck up a friendship of sorts with her, Erika's laid-back and patient personality helping to balance out Anya's more fiery traits.

Evangeline was still somewhat insular amongst all the new faces, but she had quickly formed a bond of sorts with Rika and Vita – her fellow "immortal lolis"; the two in question accepted her seniority amongst them, with Eva being 580 to Vita's 449 and Rika's 223. Evangeline had also taken it upon herself to teach Hayate some more anti-personnel-level spells and techniques, and also help the girl refine her fine control over her power. So far, they seemed to be progressing quite nicely.

It had been revealed that, though his list of "partners" was not as extensive as Negi's, Kotarō had "bonded" with Natsumi, Chizuru, Madoka, and Mei Sakura. Nanoha still fondly remembered the sight of Teana, normally so confident and steady, becoming so flustered, nervous, and bashful when Yūno had joined her, Nanoha, and Fate the evening after the return to Midchilda. A few days later, Subaru and Kaede F. had "tried out" the new spell Haruna had taught them, to Teana and Marie's surprise (and, soon after, joy).

Right now, as Teana and Nanoha sat together in the rec room, going over status reports on the _Saint's Cradle _– now set to be renamed the _Olivie _– as techs combed over & through the massive ship. They briefly took notice as Zest walked by, now healthy and strong thanks to the UNSC identifying which organs were failing and promptly flash-cloning stable and healthy ones for him that were "installed" without incident. Just yesterday, Megane Alpine had finally awakened, and upon recovering from the shock of learning everything that had happened, immediately began working to break the protective shell her little girl had built around her heart. Already, she'd gotten Lutecia to smile at least once.

"_Uh, Takamachi, Lanstar?_" a man reported from the PA speakers above the two girls' heads. "_We've got a bit of a… situation brewing in the gym room between Fuyō and Shigure. You two might wanna get down there and break it up before they blow a hole in the wall._"

Teana sighed as she and Nanoha got to their feet and headed down toward the cafeteria.

"Kaede-chan really hates Asa-san, doesn't she?" Nanoha said sadly.

"Yeah" Teana replied in a similar tone. "It breaks Asa-san's heart, really, since she still remembers when she & Kaede were friends and wants that back. …Yeah, probably not gonna happen. But I'm pretty sure that, after that incident on their Earth, Kaede's gotten most of the nasty stuff out of her system."

The duo opened the door just in time to see a chair go flying.

"Touch me again and I will _smear the walls _with you, _bitch_!"

"Or not" Teana said. She sighed. "Come on, peacemaker. Time to help me do what you do best."

"This won't be very fun…" Nanoha lamented.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Two Weeks After the Battle of Belka**

It was official: the Time-Space Administration Bureau had forged a politico-military and trade alliance with the United Nations Space Command, the Sangheili Alliance, Raynor's Raiders (which the TSAB, like the others, could not officially/legally recognize as a sovereign power, but they, like the others, _did _officially condemn Arcturus Mengsk's government, sanction Raynor's anti-Dominion actions, and offer the Raiders various types of aid), the Protoss, and the Phoenix League Federation. Already technology was being exchanged, though in a closely regulated fashion. Specialists from all factions were donating their time & services amongst the six participants, and all involved had taken the warnings & signs Teana had encountered throughout her travels seriously, and started preparing for the mysterious enemy to pop up at any time, from any place. The mostly-purified Kerrigan had even started her planned "re-conquering" of the Zerg early (with semi-reluctant assistance and intel from Artanis and his followers), feeling that they'd be needed to fight this unknown but resourceful and powerful foe. Eight days after Belka, the Phoenix League's allies, the three-species Tripartate, arrived, and promptly joined in the fun, bringing the coalition's count of participating civilizations up to either seven or ten, depending on how you looked at it.

It had taken nearly two weeks before someone was finally able to pull Dr. Halsey out of the TSAB's "Infinity Library"; Yūno had described her reaction to being introduced to such an utterly massive repository of knowledge as a somewhat more subdued version of "kid in the worlds' largest candy store".

_Ala Alba _had set up another magitech "link portal" between Mahora Academy and RF6 headquarters, in addition to the one already aboard the _Starshot_, and their members (which now included all of 3A) and Mahora Academy's mages were frequently going back & forth between the two worlds, ironing out details, setting up alliances & agreements, and exchanging ideas. Also, the TSAB had dispatched liaisons to _Mundus Magicus _to make contact with the Hellas Empire and Megalomesembrian Federation (though they planned to keep a very close and wary eye on the latter). Spells of the Vetus magic system were already starting to show up in the repertoires of a few lucky RF6 mages (though not before the Bureau heads _AND_ Mahora's mages cleared said individuals to be taught them), while Negi could already pull off Photon Lancer and Plasma Smasher thanks to (TSAB's) Fate's teachings. Also, the first meeting between Fate Testarossa-Harlaown and Fate Averruncus had been… interesting, to say the least.

The status report from Averruncus was that, of his _Ministrae_, Koyomi, Tamaki, and Shirabe had adjusted well, and Luna/Shiori was more Negi's than Fate's now, but Homura had been unable to handle the revelation that the Lifemaker whom she'd worshipped as a benevolent god was in fact an actively malevolent Precursor with goals of two-planet genocide, along with learning the atrocious reasons he wanted to do so, and was presently on constant psych-watch with her powers sealed for her own protection. Despite their clashes in the past, Teana couldn't help but pity the girl.

Vivio was safe & sound, Scaglietti was dead, the Bureau had several powerful new allies, and the members of RF6 and Gamma Team had some well-deserved downtime. …A week from now, they would all look back on this time, when they were merrily thinking "we finally have some peace; what would dare mess this up for us?", and berate themselves for tempting fate.

It started mid-afternoon, when all contact with the city of Vendol, 250 kilometers west of Cranagan, was lost. A low-orbit flyover by the TSAB destroyer _Naraka _revealed a literal roiling mass of darkness seething through the streets and over & through the buildings. Recon drones were either shot down or chased off by literal demons patrolling the skies over the freshly-conquered city. Very few refugees/survivors of the city managed to escape and reach friendly territory.

The entire rest of Midchilda immediately went on high alert, as did the contingents of UNSC, Sangheili, Raider, and Phoenix League ships & personnel present (Raynor and the _Hyperion_, along with the Protoss ships, had needed to return to their own realm to defend their territories from Mengsk and rogue (i.e., not yet controlled by Kerrigan) Zerg, respectively). This readiness proved valuable when, less than two hours after Vendol's fall, a hostile force was detected approaching Cranagan's western border. The citizenry was quickly evacuated to the various safehouses, while the defending military forces set up positions and readied themselves, with the _Shadow of Intent _taking position over the city, lending its assets to the cause.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

Vita's hammer sent yet another demon hurtling through a wall, while Sarah's gravity-hammer pulverized several waist-high "ankle-biter" lesser demons in one blow. Signum and Marie were nearby, covering each other and teaming up to take down anything hostile in sight. A charged Plasma-Burst shot took down a "Type-E" demon soldier (identified to be about as strong, fast, and durable as the average Sangheili, but lacking the shields or durable armor of the saurian aliens, and a little less intelligent), and a swing of Levantine vertically bisected a "Type-G" (the "ankle-biters"). And then a huge war-mount lumbered by, its occupants somehow not noticing the four below as they focused the demon-beast's mortar cannons on a quickly-scattering squad of Sangheili.

"Damn" Marie said. "That thing has AA guns. I don't think we can fly up and dive-bomb it like we usually do."

"The guns only point up" Signum replied. "Let's toss Vita up at it from here; I should be able to throw her high enough."

"Hey!" Vita snapped. "_Nobody _tosses me!"

The argument became moot when something much bigger showed up: a friendly Scarab walker, which proceeded to burn/melt a hole clean through the demon-best with its main cannon. The creature toppled over, the ground shaking as it hit, the occupants spilling out to be gunned down by a passing Warthog.

Suddenly, a man-sized humanoid demon came charging out, sword held overhead and bellowing a war cry. Sarah, demonstrating one of the moves Zafira had taught her, responded by german-suplexing him, rolling atop him, and starting to beat him with chakra-charged punches.

"Wow, Sarah," Marie grinned, "right to the mount, huh? Not even gonna let him buy you dinner first?"

It took Sarah a second or two to get it, but when she did she blushed and shot an annoyed glare at her sister.

"Don't worry, sis" Marie continued, her grin still present. "I won't tell Vice or Ginga about this."

By this point, Vita was openly laughing. Sarah, however, smirked.

"Marie," she said as she stood up, "you do know that I'm big enough and strong enough to literally restrain you over my knee and spank you, right? And I know for a fact thanks to Kaede that you _don't _enjoy that sort of thing."

Marie's grin disappeared. "S-Shutting up now" she replied.

Signum, meanwhile, casually finished off the demon that had (barely) survived the beatdown that Gamma-7 had given him, all while trying to hide her own little amused smile at the situation.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

Because of a combination of advance warning, quick response, and massive military presence (especially the _Shadow of Intent_'s contributions), the attack on Cranagan was pushed back & out very quickly with few casualties. Unfortunately, coalition forces had made no headway on reclaiming Vendol and had fallen back from there for now.

What was worse, while the main strength of the coalition was defending Cranagan the enemy had also attacked the less-heavily-defended city of Eragen, approximately 75 kilometers southwest of Cranagan. The defenders were putting up a hell of a fight, bolstered by quick aid from the TSAB cruiser _Deva _and the Raynor's Raiders battlecruiser _Ephemeral_. All the same, they would need help. So they got it.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Eragen (city), Mid (continent), Midchilda**

**Day After Initial Attacks**

Subaru rushed through a half-dozen Type-E demons, landing a skull-cracking blow to each one as she passed. A pack of Type-Gs rushed at her, only for her to pull out the MA5C she'd been carrying slung over her back and take them down. She then leapt over a wall in her path, landing in a courtyard where she found the same demon who'd shown up outside Scaglietti's old base after the _Cradle _took off, finishing draining the life energy from a Bureau marine and then tossing the withered dead husk to the side.

"**Hello, Number Zero**" he said. "**You're looking well. I assume you have come here to stop me?**"

"I'm gonna do a lot more than just stop you" Subaru snarled, an aura of deep-blue chakra flickering to life around her.

The demon smirked. "**Bring it.**"

-_Mini-Break_-

Elsewhere in the city, the rather unique team of Erio Mondial, Erika Swanson, and Spartan-IIIs Tom-B292 and Lucy-B091 were fighting their way through the hordes; the Spartans were mainly relying on their weapons, while Erio & Erika were using 'basic' spells and jutsu (though the latter was also proving her skill with a Needler). A swing of Strada bisected three Type-Ps at once, a round from Lucy's M395 DMR punched through the skull of a Type-E, a pink explosion ripped another Type-E open, and a blast from Tom's shotgun tore a Type-P apart. A swarm of Type-Fs – flying demons around five feet in size – swooped in from above, only for Erika to call forth a Vetus magic circle beneath her as several points of light formed around her:

"_Sagitta Magica: Series Lucis_!"

The barrage of Light-type magical projectiles easily brought down the attacking 'squadron', and the few survivors were quickly finished off by the Spartan-3 pair. The quartet continued on, carving through their attackers with such ease that the demons started running _from _them. For several minutes, they pursued the enemy forces; during this, Tom received and voiced a report that the horde was being pushed out of the city, retreating from the coalition's forces.

Suddenly, there was a palpable wave of malice-tainted dark chakra, along with a shockwave that knocked over a few (already damaged) buildings.

"…I think someone's pushed Subaru over the edge" Erio said.

"What gives you that idea?" Tom asked.

An explosion accompanied a tall demon being sent hurtling through the air over the team's heads, hotly pursued by a four-tailed, blue-and-black humanoid entity.

"I dunno" Erio snarked. "Just a gut feeling, maybe?"

"W-We should be fine" Erika said. "When A-Averruncus Secundum sent Shion into a rage, once she killed him she returned to normal… Well, plus she passed out, but…"

Suddenly, a boy's voice came over the comm.

"_Hello?-! Any friendlies receiving this, I need help! I got separated from my team, and there's a bunch of these bastards trying to skin me alive!_"

"Timmy?" Erio replied. "Where are you, man? How bad is it?"

"_I'm by the Veyron Industries tower! There's a bunch of Type-Es, a swarm of Type-Gs, and one big armored guy! I can't handle them myself for much longer!_"

"Alright, keep calm, buddy. We're on our way. Erika, we-"

But the girl in question was already gone, racing for her boyfriend's position at top speed, her muscles flooded with chakra and mana to boost her speed to Spartan-2 levels. Then she started roof-hopping, covering even more distance. She felt her magic building within her as her mind flashed to terrifying split-second "what-if" thoughts. She didn't care that Tom and Erio were shouting for her to wait up. She didn't care that she was making leaps that revealed her diaper under her skirt for anyone below to see. She didn't care that a few demons took potshots at her as she went. She only _moved_.

Less than a minute later, a _Suiton: Suigadan _heralded her arrival, taking down a Type-E and a handful of Type-Gs. She landed beside Tim, seeing him scratched up and with a bruise or two, along with holding a hand to his upper right side, where one of his ribs had been fractured. Erika was now in her cold, quiet, frightening persona that she took whenever she was seriously angry, fixing the demons with a cold glare that actually made several Type-Gs back away. The Type-Es, however, stood their ground, and a demon around the height of a Jiralhanae, clad in faded-gold armor and wielding what looked like a combination bladed shield and crossbow, stepped forward. Her eyes widened ever so slightly as she recognized him.

"You're the one who stopped me from preventing Vivio's kidnapping…" she spoke in a low, deceptively calm tone, as she remembered the large armored being intercepting her charge at Quattro and smashing her aside hard enough to fracture her arm.

"And you're the soft-hearted child who tries to play pretend-warrior" the demon replied. "Go home, little girl. You're too weak to protect anyone."

"Erika…" Tim muttered. "Get out of here. Get backup."

"…I've always been that way, haven't I?"

The girl's low declaration caught him off-guard.

"I've… a-always been unable to help the people I care for when they're in trouble. Too scared to, not strong enough to… I couldn't do anything when Marie was suffering with guilt and ran away from us out of shame. I couldn't protect Vivio when that evil woman attacked us. All I could ever do was stand back, and wait for the big heroes to swoop in and make things right where I couldn't. I…"

Her head rose, and there was more courage and conviction in her eyes than Tim had ever seen in anyone's before.

"I won't be like that anymore."

Those present could somehow _feel _as pure magic – Holy-magic – swirled within Erika, coalescing. Her right arm began to rise.

"I will _not _stand by and let the people who are precious to me get hurt. Never again!"

The mysterious power within her began to flow into her rising arm.

"I won't let you hurt them! Not you, and not anyone else!"

Her arm was held out perpendicular to her body, open palm facing out at the confused and surprised demons.

"I don't care who or what you think you are! You _do not…_"

Motes of light rapidly began to converge in her hand.

"…_hurt…_"

A semi-formless bar of light coalesced into the loosely-defined shape of a sword, the 'hilt' in her hands.

"…_MY…_"

And in a flash of light, it took form.

"…_FRIENDS!-!-!_"

A pulse of power accompanied the weapon's manifestation, bowling some of the smaller demons over. It bore resemblance to a Disney-esque white and blue castle, the central spire forming the shaft of the weapon, and next to the tip was a violet and cyan eight-pointed crystalline star like a snowflake. The handle was golden in color, as was the inner edge of the handguard, while the guard's base sported curled, cyan wheels. From the base of the hilt extended a thin chain of three white links, attached to the other end of which was what looked like a glass slipper. The demons immediately recognized the weapon now held in Erika's hand, and even the Type-Es took a step back.

Nearby, Marie arrived, touching down on a rooftop, having heard the transmission and come flying in as quickly as she could… and as soon as she recognized what Erika had just manifested, her breath caught in her throat out of utter shock. The "Stroke of Midnight".

"A…" she gasped out. "A… K… Keyblade…"

Timmy was in awe at the amount of Light magic his girlfriend was currently channeling and holding. The head demon had an irrepressible nervousness and… fear… to his expression. Erika's eyes were closed as she basked in the warmth and strength that the weapon sent to her, merging and twisting with the warmth and strength of her own Heart. She could feel it; this key-shaped blade was an extension of her, and it represented the strength of her Heart, of her conviction to protect those important to her. The warmth and Light was like a calm, gentle voice that she could not quite hear, easing her fears, strengthening her resolve, bolstering her courage.

She opened her eyes. She gripped the Keyblade's hilt in both hands. And she charged.

**-**_**CHAPTER END**_**-**

Yes, I was planning this.

Next chapter: we wrap up Subaru and Erika's curb-stompings, and then get to the battle to retake Vendol.


	10. How To Exorcise A Planet

SEE FIRST CHAPTER FOR MOST DISCLAIMERS

_KINGDOM HEARTS _IS THE PROPERTY OF SQUARE-ENIX

PLEASE READ & REVIEW, AND TEND TO THE TROPE & CHARACTER PAGES

Just for avoiding confusion: Fate Averruncus is not on Midchilda right now. Thus, any mentions of "Fate" are Testarossa-Harlaown.

NOTE: I tried so very hard to come up with Boss Battle music for this chapter's fight that wasn't from _Kingdom Hearts_, out of fear that I've been overusing that series in terms of battle music. But I couldn't. Over TWO HOURS of just sitting there, going through every single other series I know of, trying to find a song that worked, that fit the battle, the mood, the situation. And I. Just. Couldn't. For those of you who are getting tired of _KH _music being used so often here, I'm sorry. I tried my best. And my best just wasn't good enough.

**Kadak's voice:** Kevin Michael Richardson (Tartarus from _Halo 2_, Trigon from _Teen Titans_, Jolee Bindo from _Knights of the Old Republic_, etc.)

**-**_**CHAPTER START**_**-**

**Eragen (city), Mid (continent), Midchilda**

**Day After Initial Attacks**

**Right Where the Previous Chapter Left Off**

Three Type-G demons were dead before the rest of the enemy even knew what happened, Erika's new Keyblade cleaving through them in one wide swing. The remainder immediately leapt back, Erika slashing a Type-E across the chest diagonally as it was too slow to get away, stunning it. She followed up with three more strikes, a combo that knocked the demon back, dispelling into raw Darkness as it fell. She then quickly pointed her Keyblade at two more of them, and fired from the tip a concentrated barrage of Light-type _Sagitta Magica_ that took them down before they could react. She then rushed in, the Stroke of Midnight grasped in both hands, and got to work.

She leapt high, flipping over a Type-E (dodging its weapon's swing) and slashing out at its head at the peak of her jump. As it fell, dead, she spring-boarded off the face of another, knocking it over and stunning it, and delivered two more quick slashes to a third, killing it as well. She moved with grace and lethal purpose, her speed and small size letting her dart around and strike at the Type-Es while her superior reach allowed her to quickly wipe out the Type-Gs. Timmy could only watch in awe as his sweet little girlfriend proceeded to thrash an entire squad of demons with that odd new weapon of hers. On the nearby rooftop, Marie was in equal awe, still trying to process and get over that fact that her little sister now had a Keyblade. Feeling something building within her, Erika leapt high, pointing her Keyblade down at the surviving demons, and as the sphere of magic rapidly built up at her blade's tip, she spoke the words that came to her:

"Prism Rain!"

A barrage of bolts of magic covering the seven colors of a rainbow shot out, impacting the demons. All of the remaining Type-Gs, all but two of the Type-Es, and the leading Type-B were wiped out. As she landed, the Type-B pointed his shield/crossbow hybrid at her and fired an "arrow" of Darkness. Instinctively, Erika cast a shield spell, but this time she channeled it through her Keyblade rather than casting it directly. In result, the barrier/shield was composed of interlocking hexagons forming a half-dome, which deflected and absorbed the attack with significantly less strain than her old, basic rune-shields. The moment she dropped she shield, she rushed the Type-B, Stroke of Midnight in hand. She dodged two more shots as she closed in, drawing and firing her Needler off-hand to kill one of the two remaining Type-Es. The other one tried to intercept, only for Marie to nail it with a long-range Charge Beam shot from the nearby roof, leaving the Type-B to fight Erika alone.

Once she got in close, she brought her Keyblade up to block a downward strike from the sharp edge of the Type-B's weapon. She lashed out with a chakra-charged kick at his lower left leg, which hit hard enough to nearly break the limb in question. The being stepped back, favoring his left leg, and fired a point-blank Darkness Arrow that narrowly missed Erika's head, but she paid no mind to the close call, instead lashing out with a rising swing of her Keyblade that dealt Light-type magical damage, causing quite a bit of harm to the Darkness-based entity. She followed up with a quick and devastating combo that sent the demon reeling. To finish, she channeled a Light-type _Sagitta Magica _into her left fist and struck with the technique Negi had taught her:

"_Ōkahōken_!"

The powerful, Light-infused strike sent the Type-B flying back several feet, slamming into a wall and sliding down it into a slumped seated position. His form was wavering, as if he were barely holding himself together. Erika walked up and finished the job, a downward strike from her Keyblade finishing the demon off. Taking a few deep breaths, she turned around and went over to Timmy, to check on him. He was staring at her for a few seconds, wide-eyed and in awe, but then he gathered himself and, when she came close, hugged her as well as his injuries would allow, which she (carefully) returned.

"I still can't believe it…"

The two startled a bit as Marie leapt down, walking over.

"My little sister has not only become a badass, but manifested a Keyblade…"

"Huh?" Erika held the Stroke of Midnight up. "M-Marie, you know what this thing is?"

"Oh, do I ever" the teen replied. "I'll explain it to you after we finish reclaiming this city. Or Chizuru will. Or Chisame. Or Yūna. Or Fate – girl Fate, that is. Or Keiichi. …The point I'm making is that weapon is one of the core elements of a rather epic game series that I and those I just mentioned have all played. We can tell you all you need to know. But still… I can't believe that my little sister has one of the most powerful types of magical weapon ever made!"

Erika looked at the weapon in her hands with slight awe as she heard this.

"Only those who possess strong Hearts can wield a Keyblade" Marie continued. "And that you managed to manifest one without ever having performed the Rite of Succession with another Wielder is…"

"I, on the other hand," Timmy cut in, "have known ever since I first met her that behind Erika's shyness and quietness was a strong Heart. So that bit doesn't surprise me as much."

Erika gave her boyfriend a smile at that remark. "Well," she said, "let's test it out more and help clear the city, shall we? …Oh, b-but first, I… I need a change…"

Marie let her own smile form. "Okay, kiddo" she said as she pulled the necessary supplies from a subspace storage pocket. "I'll help you out, with _both _of those. Come on over and lay on this bench over here…"

-_Mini-Break_-

While Erika was testing out her new weapon, the Type-A demon in charge of attacking the city was fending for his life against the rampaging, 4-Tailed-Form _Jinchūriki _that Subaru had become after the demon had stupidly made one implied threat too many against Ginga and Teana. Now the demon was losing a fight for his life against a pseudo-daemonic entity that vastly outclassed him. He threw another barrage of dark fireballs at the beast, only for her to swing her claw and generate a pulse of wind and chakra that snuffed them out. She fired two blasts of explosive chakra, one right after the other; the first hit his shield, badly damaging it, while the second broke it and knocked him out of the air, falling in an arc toward an empty parking lot.

The Type-A left a small crater where he landed, and seconds later barely rolled out of the way to avoid a spearing strike from one of the Host's four tails' tips. He leapt back as the pseudo-daemon landed where he'd just been, and he flew backwards along the ground while firing bursts of Darkness at her. Suddenly, he felt a horrible burning pain in his torso. He looked down, and saw the tip of one of the Host's chakra tails emerging from his chest from behind. When she'd made the initial spearing strike, she had not retracted the tail when it stabbed into the ground, instead extending it and moving it around just underground to get it into position.

The tail then coiled around the being it had impaled, and with a lurch the underground portion of it surfaced, violently displacing the concrete directly above it. The appendage then rapidly yanked its victim inward, straight into the path of a massively powerful punch that killed the demon instantly, the shockwave of the impact shattering a nearby supermarket's front windows. After several seconds of standing there, relishing victory, the "Blood Shroud" opaque cloak of chakra dissipated, leaving an unconscious Subaru to topple over (her skin growing back completely before she'd even hit the ground). Less than 20 seconds later, Kaede Nagase arrived on-scene. Recognizing the faint familiar residual chakra in the air and remembering Shion vs. Secundum, she picked Subaru up and then leapt away, heading for friendly lines.

-_Mini-Break_-

Graf Eisen swung again, taking down two more Type-G demons.

"Ha!" Vita shouted. "That's 56 to Sarah's 54! I'm in the lead again!"

Suddenly, a massive war-mount thundered by, its steps shaking the earth as the dozen or so lesser demons aboard took potshots at the coalition soldiers below. Vita steeled herself, getting ready to shift Eisen to _Gigantform_. Suddenly, however, a figure leapt from atop a nearby four-story building, landing on the war-beast's back. Sarah ran along the beast's spine, dodging the fire sent her way by the surprised demons, and then she brought her gravity hammer down as hard as she could on the base of the beast's skull.

The beast let out a pained roar, and then began to topple over like a falling tower, its spine pulverized just behind its head. Sarah leapt high off of the war-mount as it fell, crushing its side-slung troop compartment and the 11 demons within, the ground trembling with the impact. Sarah made a stylish landing, completely unharmed, and slung her hammer over her back. Vita stared, slack-jawed, before finally pointing.

"Th… That still only counts as one!" she insisted indignantly.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Raynor's Raiders prefabricated structure**

**Eragen**

**90 minutes later**

Some of those who had fought to defend the city gathered in this location. Wounded were tended to, stories were swapped, and heads were counted. In one room, Fate, Chisame, and Yūna were gathered, having gotten together on Marie's radioed-in request.

"I wonder what she wants to show us" Yūna said.

At this point, the girl in question and her little sister walked in. They looked a tad roughed up but otherwise okay.

"Girls," Marie said, "what we're about to show you is _not _fake, not an illusion, not made up; it's the real deal. She manifested it while defending Timmy."

She then looked down to Erika, who nodded and held out her right hand… and in a flash of light, the Stroke of Midnight appeared. There was wide-eyed silence for several seconds, jaws dropped.

"…Holy shit…" Chisame finally forced out.

"I want to protect the people important to me, more than anything else" Erika said. "This blade is a manifestation of that desire, I believe."

"…Things are getting more and more interesting…" Fate said.

"…We're eventually gonna end up fighting Heartless, aren't we?" Yūna asked.

After several seconds, Chisame composed herself and spoke up again. "Knowing our luck? Definitely. Better start training with that thing, kid; I have a feeling you're gonna need to get good with it."

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Vendol (city), Mid (continent), Midchilda**

**Three Days Later**

This was it. It was time to take Vendol back and kick these monsters off of Midchilda. Armored convoys, squadrons of dropships, and half a dozen capital ships all advanced on the enemy-held city. A tightly-packed swarm of flying demons – Type-Ds, the coalition was calling them – advanced toward the approaching military hardware, darkening the sky with their approach. In response, the frigate UNSC _Saratoga _fired its MAC, the relativistic-velocity 600-ton shell of depleted uranium – and the shockwave its passage produced – utterly obliterating about half of the swarm before zooming off into space. Banshees deployed from the Sangheili Alliance _Vigilance_-class corvette _Illuminating Spark_, while "Valkyrie" air-superiority craft and flight-configuration Vikings departed from the hangar bays of the Koprulu Terran _Behemoth_-class battlecruiser _Halberd_.

From the hangar of the _Starshot_, Gamma Team and RF6 deployed, spreading out to cover the areas where they were most needed. As Nanoha and Teana flew toward the city center, the former began preparations to enter Sage Mode just in case, hands already pressed together. They quickly reached their target area and started carving through the demons waiting there, Nanoha relying on her feet and on hands-free spells. Soon enough, the gathering of energies was complete, and Shima & Fukasaku appeared on Nanoha's shoulders, accompanied by a tremendous jump in the girl's power level, the skin around her eyes turning red while her eyes changed to yellow irises with horizontal pupils.

"What's going on, Nanoha-chan?" Fukasaku asked.

"We're fighting to retake a city from… demons, for lack of a better description. This is where their leader is, whoever that may be. I anticipate that he'll be strong enough to warrant Sage Mode, and I figured I'd enter it preemptively, rather than try to fight him or her off without the use of my hands."

"Hmm…" Shims replied. "Wise of you, dear."

"Speak of the _Jūbi_…" Fukasaku muttered as his attention was drawn to a figure floating serenely toward Nanoha and Teana. "Looks like we got here just in time."

The being was around eight feet tall, a black hide clad in armor, with four glowing red eyes and sharp, backwards-jutting metallic spikes in place of hair. He looked at the two girls, focusing on Teana.

"**At last we meet face-to-face, Ms. Lanstar**" he said with a smirk.

Teana's eyes widened briefly and then narrowed in anger as she recognized the voice. "Kadak…" she snarled.

The two Sage Toads, meanwhile, were almost quivering. "A d-daemon…" Shima whispered, eyes wide with nervousness and fear. "A lesser daemon, but still… Thank goodness you summoned us when you did, Nanoha-chan."

"**It seems that the two of you have caught my Master's eye**" Kadak said. "**Enough so that I have been instructed to ensure your deaths personally. You should feel privileged; this hasn't happened in nearly a century.**"

"Pardon me if I withhold my enthusiasm" Nanoha replied with a cold glare.

Kadak chuckled in response. "**Now then…**" he said. "**Let us begin.**"

(BOSS MUSIC: _Kingdom Hearts 2 _– "The Corrupted")

Teana struck first, firing a barrage of 73 Fire-type _Sagitta Magica _that streaked through the air toward Kadak, the ambient temperature spiking briefly from the combined heat of the fire bolts. Kadak responded by throwing both arms outward, casting a spherical shield that surrounded him completely, withstanding the barrage. He willed the shield to shatter into countless jagged pieces which he then shot at the two girls, only for Nanoha to call up her own _senjutsu_-enhanced rune-shield, easily deflecting the barrage.

Teana then charged in, Mirage Longswords in hand, and in response Kadak summoned an ornate and deceptively delicate-looking blade. He dodged, parried, and blocked her strikes with some effort, slowly giving ground to her. Suddenly, Teana broke off and flash-stepped back, just in time for Nanoha to fly in and lash out with a Sage Mode-enhanced punch. Kadak was pushed back a fair distance as he blocked the blow, quietly surprised by how much of a boost Sage Mode gave the young woman. He then narrowly dodged a _Zessenzan _from Fukasaku, avoiding decapitation by less than a meter, and then took a hit from a _Fūton: Shinkūgyoku _from Shima, though it did little damage.

Nanoha brought Raising Heart up in time to block a horizontal swing from Kadak's blade, and then entered a short but fast-paced duel that lasted around 11 seconds, ending when Kadak narrowly dodged a kick… and got smacked by the Sage Mode aura of the limb, sending him tumbling back. He quickly regained control and brought a rune-shield up to block Teana's _Katon: Gōkakyū_, and then countered with a dark-purple fireball nearly three times as big, which Teana barely managed to dodge. Kadak then began charging a considerable amount of dark power into a sphere of energy… only to be forced to cancel it in order to dodge several _Jaculatio Fulgoris _lightning spears from below. The individual responsible quickly took his position in-between Nanoha and Teana.

"Hello, ladies" Negi said, the air around him crackling as he hovered in _Raiten Sōsō _form. "Mind if I cut in?"

-_Mini-Break_-

Shion charged through another swarm of lesser demons, her two chakra-tails giving her two extra 'limbs' to strike with. Nearby, Subaru was in her 1-Tailed Form, making her own dents in the enemy's numbers. On her other side was Mai in her 2-Tailed Form, adding her power to the cause. The three _Jinchūriki _(well, two Type-1s and one Type-2) had teamed up and combined forces to take chunks out of the enemy hordes, as well as to help handle the bigger, stronger, tougher ones so the soldiers following in their wake wouldn't have to.

Elsewhere on the battlefield, Erika used her Keyblade, magic, and _jutsu _to cut down lesser demons … but she was quite aware that she paled in comparison to her current combat partner, who had arrived aboard the UNSC _Saratoga _yesterday. The Master Chief John-117 was unstoppable, the green-armored super-soldier taking down demons by the dozens without breaking stride and with almost no effort. His Mark-7 MJOLNIR armor practically shined in the sunlight, his upgraded energy shields easily withstanding what few glancing hits he took. He moved with a grace and economy of movement that came from decades of experience, and with a speed that only armored-up Spartans could manage. His MA5C assault rifle and M90A shotgun dealt out hot death to any demons he pointed them at, and his punches and kicks alone were strong enough to kill nearly all of the dark beings he hit.

Sarah and Vita cut their way through a swarm of Type-Gs using the former's plasma sword and the latter's Device. As they advanced, they came across another demonic war-beast slowly trampling its way through the area, mounted AA guns shooting down a Banshee before it could get a bead on it. The two watched as a squad of soldiers was cut down by the demons riding the beast. Vita's mind was quickly made up.

"Sarah!" she said. "Toss me!"

"…Okay" the blonde replied with a shrug of her shoulders, getting herself and Vita into position.

"And don't you _dare _tell Signum about this" the little redhead added with a glare.

Sarah smirked in response, and then with a heave Vita took flight, moving much faster than she could fly under her own power in such short distance, Graf Eisen growing to several times its normal size as she moved.

"Gigant Crusher!"

-_Mini-Break_-

The four high-level combatants zipped around the aerial battlefield, firing attacks and trading blows. Kadak was on the defensive, unable to deal any notable damage to Nanoha, Teana, or Negi; however, his defense was good enough that none of the three were able to land any decisive blows on him, either. A _Katon: Gōenkyū _from Teana hit an equally-large dark fireball from Kadak, the two detonating in a massive, bright explosion. A Titan-Slayer spear punched through the rising cloud of smoke and flame, Kadak dodging it by less than two meters. He could not dodge the following huge barrage of pink Accel Shooter bolts, which pounded relentlessly against the rune-shield he summoned, eventually breaking through it to strike him directly.

Kadak emerged from the 'smoke', bearing a handful of light or moderate wounds that were very slowly healing themselves. Before the three could react, he unleashed his own wave of dark fire-bolts; Negi used his superior agility and speed to dodge the ones coming at him, while Nanoha and Teana tanked them with Sage Mode-enhanced shields and a Stage 1 _Susanō_, respectively. Teana's skeletal _Susanō _swung its serrated sword, unleashing a slicing wave of chakra. Kadak flew over it (barely) and charged at Negi, the lightning-form boy following suit, the two entering a high-speed joust that met with a thunderclap, leading into a fast-paced close-combat brawl. Negi's superior speed allowed him to land several powerful blows, but it didn't do too much.

"Jeez, what is this guy made of?" Teana remarked.

"Scanning stats…" Raising Heart stated. "Target specifications are as follows: Physical Strength S; Magical Strength AAA; Speed AAA+; Stamina/Energy Reserves S+; Defense S+. Overall level: S+."

Teana sighed. "So all three of us have him outmatched in offense, Negi-kun's faster than he is and I'm _as _fast, but he can take more damage than me or Negi."

"We need something that can either break through or circumvent his defense" Nanoha said. "Negi-kun's _Titano-Ktonon _should be able to, but he hasn't been able to land a solid hit with it. And I don't think Kadak will give me or you the time to charge up a full-strength Starlight-class barrier buster."

"Might a _Rasengan _work?" Shima suggested.

"Maybe…" Fukasaku replied. "But maybe not. This one can regenerate. Granted, his regeneration is quite slow, but it could still enable him to outlast us. We need to hit him with something he can't regenerate from."

After a few seconds, Teana spoke. "I have an idea."

Meanwhile, Negi continued to do battle with Kadak, the boy's speed and the daemon's defense nullifying each other's advantages.

"**I must admit that I am quite impressed, boy**" Kadak said. "**As I would expect from one of the individuals responsible for slaying a Precursor Archmage – a being capable of destroying me without much effort. Of course… you had more overall firepower between your group that time than you three do now.**"

"…There's more to fighting top-tier foes like you and him than just raw power" Negi replied, having been telepathically informed of Teana & Nanoha's plan. "Skill and technique can play a deciding role, too, as can targeting an opponent's weak points."

"**Indeed.**"

Negi smirked. "That is why I'm going to be doing _this_!"

He formed a dozen Lightning Release Shadow Clones, and he & they then began blitzing at Kadak from all directions, gradually battering down his guard. The daemon forced them away with a roar and an omni-directional pulse of power… and was then caught by the delayed Wind-style Bind spell that Negi had set up, holding him in place as Nanoha and Teana rushed at him. In the second before they hit him, he noticed that the two were holding a large swirling sphere of energy between them, which wasn't so bad… until he noticed that the redhead's _Mangekyō Sharingan _were active, and the spiraling sphere of chakra was infused with the black flames of _Amaterasu_. For that last moment, Kadak felt genuine panic and fear, right as he was hit by a technique empowered by one of the few forces capable of killing him:

"Hellfire Rasengan!-!"

The _Ōdama Rasengan _empowered with black hellfire grinded and burned into Kadak. Nanoha & Teana, their arms enshrouded in Sage chakra and defensive reinforcement magic to protect them from the all-consuming, unquenchable flames, immediately launched themselves backward a split-second before the sphere of destruction detonated, a spiraling column of black flame enveloping Kadak. He did not have time to scream before his vocal chords were incinerated, along with the rest of his body. The black fires corkscrewed through the air, only to vanish at Teana's mental command before they could fall and set alight any parts of the city below. As Kadak's soul was sent away to where all evil souls go, the three heard one final telepathic speech from it:

"_**I was the weakest of my Master's four Generals. Enjoy this victory while you can; my three compatriots will not be so easily defeated.**_"

With that, Kadak's presence vanished forever. Across the city, the demons suddenly found their will to fight severely weakened due to losing Kadak's artificial boosting of it (similar to a technique the Jedi had known as "Battle Meditation"). At the same time, a Sangheili assault carrier appeared above the city, dropships deploying en masse. Within minutes, the enemy was in full retreat, their warriors being gunned down or blown to bits as they ran. The trio, tired but still able to fight, harried the demons as they retreated.

Within 15 minutes, the city of Vendol was again in Bureau hands.

**-**_**CHAPTER END**_**-**

One more chapter to come, which will lead directly into Book 10. Then, there will be a BONUS mini-chapter displaying data on the starship classes currently used by the various civilizations presently involved.


	11. And The Adventures Continue

SEE FIRST CHAPTER FOR MOST DISCLAIMERS

_KINGDOM HEARTS _IS THE PROPERTY OF SQUARE-ENIX

_NEON GENESIS EVANGELION _IS THE PROPERTY OF GAINAX

PLEASE READ & REVIEW, AND TEND TO THE TROPE & CHARACTER PAGES

**-**_**CHAPTER START**_**-**

**TSAB Riot Force XI Headquarters**

**Two Days After Vendol's Reclamation**

Teana relaxed into the comfy chair she was currently seated in. In the wake of the recent incident, and after carefully reviewing the detailed report of her actions on other worlds after leaving their Earth, the United Nations Space Command's leadership had decided to offer the Grade-5 Warrant Officer a commission as a full officer. She looked down at the gold bar on her UNSC uniform, the insignia of a Second Lieutenant. The other six members of Gamma were now all WO4, and it was almost certain they'd eventually reach WO5.

The clean-up after the demonic incursion on Midchilda was progressing smoothly. Fatalities were accounted for, wounded were receiving treatment, and reconstruction & repair were already starting for some parts of the afflicted cities. All in all, it could've been worse.

The "backstory" behind Erika's mysterious new weapon had been explained to those who didn't know already by Fate, Marie, Chizuru, Chisame, Yūna, and Keiichi – the characters and plots of the game series' various entries, intel on the Keyblades, the Heartless, Nobodies, & Unversed, the Keyblade War and various other tidbits. The six in question regretted that none of their three timelines had yet seen the release of _Dream Drop Distance_, the next installment of the series that was sure to answer some old questions and create new ones. Nonetheless, it was all plenty of food for thought. Everyone unanimously agreed that, were they to encounter this Xehanort during their future travels, they would lend a hand in taking him down for all that he'd done.

Though nobody could help her with advanced techniques due to her weapon's unique structure, Signum, Nanoha, and Setsuna had already started tutoring Erika in the basics of swordsmanship, the stuff that applied to all remotely sword-like weapons. She was proving to be an eager and fast learner. At the same time, the Stroke of Midnight's ability to act as a channeler and focus of magic had opened up more new avenues for her.

Teana looked over as Fate sat down on the couch nearby, looking lost in thought.

"What's wrong?" Teana asked.

Fate startled a bit. "Oh. It's nothing, Teana. I'm just… remembering something that happened years ago. It's a memory I'd rather forget."

Teana got up, walked over, and took a seat next to her. "What happened?" she asked softly, placing a hand on Fate's. Fate took a ragged breath.

"I was almost lost to Darkness" the blonde replied. "I… It happened about two weeks after Nanoha's 'accident'…"

**-**_**FLASHBACK START**_**-**

**TSAB Administered World #72 – Vickers (pop. 230,000)**

**Seven Years Ago**

Fate clutched tightly onto Bardiche, panting for breath. The 12-year-old's Barrier Jacket was torn here & there, and a handful of small wounds marred her young body. Her opponent stood before her – a tall, fairly-muscular man with tan skin and amber eyes tainted by cruelty. He was a little breathless as well, but was faring better than she was. His Barrier Jacket, a dark-red top with matching pants and black boots, showed only a few tears, and there were no noticeable wounds on his body.

His name was Bernard Shasten. Fate had been sent to apprehend him after he was positively linked to the murder of 16 people, including three TSAB personnel. Fate had stumbled upon his 17th and 18th victims – an old man and his adult son out fishing, less than three hours dead – shortly after arriving on Vickers, and had followed his trail here, to this dead, rocky canyon with no people around for miles, halfway between the town near his last two victims and a major city. And here, they'd fought.

The man wasn't quite as fast as Fate, but he was close. More importantly, he had better defense and more raw power. What's more, Fate was tired both physically and emotionally, from tracking this man across the planet for three days straight, and from the painfully recent near-fatal wounding of the girl she was coming to love, along with having seen Nanoha suffering so whenever she visited. Fate's feelings of helplessness, sorrow, and guilt over not being there to prevent it had been eating away at her, compromising her fortitude, her resolve. All through this present fight, she'd felt something building up inside of her. And she was, for some reason she couldn't fathom, scared of what would happen if it broke out.

"This is just sad" Shasten said with a sneer. "One of the Bureau's two 'rising stars', and you can't even beat a thug like me. You think you can protect or avenge anyone like this? You're just a fragile little baby girl playing pretend-soldier."

'_No_' a not-quite-voice seemed to whisper from within Fate's heart, as the blonde felt a spark of anger come to life. '_You are more. S__**h**__ow him how mu__**c**__h more __**y**__ou are._'

"I _will _stop you" she said in the low, even tone she'd used back when she was in her mother's service.

Shasten laughed. "You couldn't stop anyone, little girl. You certainly couldn't stop your little friend from getting crippled."

Fate's eyes shot wide open as a gasp escaped her throat.

"Oh yes, that particular bit of news is already starting to get out among the Bureau worlds. The little white star of the Bureau brought down to earth by a cloaked droid. Bet you wish you could've been there to stop it, huh? Hah! As if you could've made _any _difference…"

'_He __**i**__s wro__**ng**_' the un-voice said. '_He in__**sul**__ts her. __**M**__ake him __**p**__a__**y**__ for th__**at**__. P__**a**__y i__**n**__ blo__**od**__._'

Fate's teeth gritted as she felt the spark growing larger within her. Her grip tightened on Bardiche's staff.

"How was it?" the man asked, an evil grin on his face. "The feeling you had when you saw her battered and broken, covered in the blood you foolishly think you could've stopped from being shed… And that wasn't the only failure you've suffered, is it? …Testarossa"

'_He __**sp**__its upo__**n yo**__ur na__**me**__. In __**d**__isres__**p**__ecting yo__**u**__, he disr__**esp**__ects and insu__**lt**__s those wh__**o ca**__re for you. __**H**__e disresp__**ec**__ts __**Na**__noh__**a**__._'

"I did some homework after you and Takamachi showed up on the galactic scene" Shasten continued. "Nothing on her, as to be expected from someone born & raised on a non-administered world. But you… daughter of the woman held responsible for the deaths of hundreds thanks to her little experiment gone haywire. Oh wait… Not her daughter, because she was among the dead. That woman had connections with powerful people, with powerful technology."

His grin turned positively predatory.

"You're a clone. A copy. A _fake_."

He either didn't notice or didn't care as Fate's anger continued to build. The red irises of her eyes began to slowly shift to a golden-yellow, an almost-imperceptible pitch-black aura conforming to her body.

'_He __**ins**__u__**lts**__**Moth**__er!_' the not-voice cried out. '_**Su**__ch o__**ffen**__se __**must **__not __**g**__o un__**puni**__she__**d**__!_'

Fate's vision began to be tinted an unnatural red as the anger built up more and more within her. Years of long-suppressed angers, fears, sorrows, worries, loneliness, all converted into a roiling darkness that seethed and surged upward in the form of something she'd never felt before: hatred.

"I understand what you are now" he said. "You're here working with the Bureau. That must mean… that _she _cast you aside. You didn't live up to her expectations. And you couldn't stop the manifestation of the Book of Darkness on one of the most heavily populated planets the Bureau has ever found. _And _you couldn't stop your little friend from taking wounds she'll almost certainly _die _from. …And now, you can't even stop me from getting away, from harvesting more victims. You are…"

'_**Sav**__o__**r yo**__ur des__**pai**__r and r__**age**__! Let it em__**power**__ you!_'

And for the next bit, for a brief moment, Precia's face and voice were superimposed over Shasten's.

"…_a worthless failure._"

'_Le__**t you**__r He__**art blacken with anger!-!**_'

And in a sudden, overwhelming surge of power, all of the years' worth of suppressed Darkness was fully unleashed.

'_**Ma**__ke h__**im**__ h__**urt**__! M__**ake**__**hi**__m __**suff**__er__**!**__**Make him die!-!**_'

Shasten's eyes widened in surprise as, with a feral scream/roar, a large, pitch-black aura enveloped Fate, like a roaring black inferno, forcing him a few steps back. The ancient rock beneath Fate's feet cracked and gave way to the dark aura, her entire body surging with tainted power. After forcing it down for so long, rejecting its existence, refusing to face it, Fate at last embraced her Heart's Darkness, allowing herself to be enveloped by it, giving her the strength of rage and hatred. Her irises were a golden-yellow, the sclera black, and her canine teeth had ever-so-slightly elongated, bared like an angry wolf's. In her right hand, the staff of Bardiche warped and cracked, the golden energy blade turning crimson, the AI putting itself in a dormant mode out of self-preservation lest it be fried or corrupted by the encroaching Darkness.

Shasten was stunned, one arm shielding his face. "W… What is this?" he whispered.

Fate focused on him and spoke, her voice feral and enraged. "_I'll __**rip**__ you __**apart**__…_"

And in a blur of motion, she attacked. Before Shasten could react, a Darkness-supercharged little fist was buried in his gut, and then he was flying backward with considerable velocity. He pulled out of his uncontrolled flight, clutching at his stomach, and looked up just in time to catch a roundhouse kick to the face that rocketed him to the side, the girl streaking after him like a black comet. She quickly caught up and then dealt a hammer-fist blow that sent him down into the ground around 130 feet below, leaving a small crater. He pulled himself up and out, and as she appeared in front of him he charged mana into his right first, let out a war-cry, and lashed out with all his might.

She caught the punch effortlessly, the burst of explosive mana doing nothing to her. Her black aura intensified as she suddenly, violently twisted his arm, and Shasten screamed as he felt and heard the bones snap. He leapt back, flying at just above ground level into a nearby cave entrance. A few seconds in, the light from the nearby entrance was unnaturally snuffed out, and he felt a powerful blow smash into him from the side, sending him stumbling. Another came seconds later, and another, and another. The only source of light was the glow from the corrupted Fate's golden-yellow irises as she pummeled him relentlessly. Eventually, she hit him with a blow that sent him through the "wall" and out into daylight. As he was airborne, Fate flew up beside him, the crimson blade of the corrupted Bardiche swinging out.

Shasten felt horrible burning pain as his legs were both severed just above the knee. At the peak of his arc, she lashed out again, the blade of superheated magical energy cutting deep into his gut, a gouge glowing with heat that had cut into and through several organs. She then struck him hard with the blunt end, sending him down to the ground, crashing in a heap. She landed on top of him, standing over him. His eyes showed pure terror as he looked up at her, while her eyes showed naught but malice and rage. She brought her fist back and up, as it began charging so much Darkness power that its colors inverted.

"P-Please!" Shasten cried out. "Mercy! I beg you!"

His plea went unanswered. With a hoarse cry, Fate brought her fist down into the center of his chest. The blow shattered his ribcage into a thousand pieces and obliterated his heart and lungs, the ground beneath him shattering from transferred force, the earth quaking for a good distance around. After several seconds, all was still and quiet except for the surging aura around Fate. She pulled her fist out of the ground, where it had embedded after going through Shasten's body.

'_**Yes**__…_' the not-voice whispered with glee. '_A__**nd no**__w, w__**e sha**__ll __**trul**__y be__**come**__**on**__e._'

Fate's eyes widened, and she let out a strangled cry as she brought both hands to her head, stumbling back as she felt the Darkness of her Heart beginning to advance farther, overtaking her, threatening to consume her Heart entirely. Now, she was no longer standing in the gorge, but floating in a grey void that was growing increasingly darker and blacker. Within seconds, the darkness was almost total.

'_Fate!_'

The sudden voice – a little girl's, sweet, yet frantic – pulled Fate out of the encroaching sleepiness and cold. It sounded so familiar…

'_Fate! Sister!_'

She opened her eyes, and in front of her, joining her in the black void, a glowing figure appeared, her pure light illuminating and driving back the darkness. The little girl looked exactly like her, and Fate's eyes widened, the sclera returning to their natural white.

"A… Alicia…?"

'_Don't give into the Darkness, Fate!_' Alicia implored. '_Fight it! Remember the people you love! Remember the happiness you've found! Don't let the Darkness take that all away from you!_'

'That's right…' Fate thought, as her irises returned to their normal red. 'Nanoha would be heartbroken if I…'

'_Take my hand, Fate!_' Alicia said, reaching out. '_Let me help you!_'

Slowly, Fate reached out. After a bit of a struggle, their hands connected, and she felt Alicia's warmth flowing into and through her. In a flash of light, the Darkness disappeared nigh-instantly, cast off, out of Fate's Heart, out of her body and her soul, out of her, into the endless void of oblivion. When Fate opened her eyes, Alicia stood before her, a warm, tearful smile on her face.

"We did it…" Alicia said.

Fate looked down, noticing that she now stood upon a massive circular platform, on which was a pattern like a stained-glass mural. The main focus was Fate herself, eyes closed with a calm, small smile on her face, Bardiche in hand; lining the outside of the circle were various small images – Bardiche's pendant form, Arf in her puppy form, the TSAB coat of arms, and other things. Above and outside the platform was endless blackness, but this was not the corruptive Darkness of earlier; rather, it was a calm, pure, comforting darkness, like shade on a hot day, or the cleansing cool night right before bed.

"I'm so glad I made it in time…" Alicia said.

"…Where are we?" Fate asked.

"We've dived into your Heart, sister" Alicia replied. "The Darkness has been purged from it."

Slowly, reluctantly, she let go of Fate's hand. And she began to float up and away.

"I wish we could talk more, Fate," she said as her form became transparent, "but we're out of time. Be careful, sister. I love you…"

Fate reached out, trying to say something, but then a burst of light swallowed everything. A few seconds later, Fate's eyes opened, as she found herself lying on the hard ground of the gorge, in the shade beneath a rocky overhang. Bardiche lay at her side, returned to normal. Several meters away, Shasten's body lay still in a pool of blood. Shakily, Fate got to her feet.

"Sir," Bardiche reported, "I have sent a report that our target has been terminated. …For your sake, I have omitted the details of his death. We should return to the extraction point."

Fate nodded, still in a little bit of shock, and slowly she floated upward. Her flight was unsteady due to how tired she was, but she made it back safe and sound.

**-**_**FLASHBACK END**_**-**

Teana sat by Fate's side, hand still on the blonde's, as the other girl finished her tale.

"I was almost lost that day" Fate said. "I… I became a monster. The 'Black Devil'… If Alicia hadn't…"

Fate startled as she felt two warm, soft arms envelop her from behind.

"But she did" Nanoha said. "And you weren't lost. …Why didn't you ever tell me about this?"

Fate swallowed. "You were still in the hospital fighting for your life, Nanoha" she replied. "I didn't want to add anything to your worries. And… I was ashamed… and I still am. I gave myself to my Darkness. I didn't just kill him, I made him suffer, made him die in agony and terror! I almost… I…"

"Shh…" the brunette hopped over the back of the couch and embraced her golden-haired girlfriend. "You're still here. Your Darkness is gone. You're one of the purest, kindest, gentlest souls I've ever met. You're my Fate."

Fate let out a sigh as tension slowly left her. The two moved to the chair nearby, Nanoha pulling Fate into her lap… and, as Teana got up to leave, Fate reached out and pulled her down into her own lap, wrapping her arms around Teana's waist. Teana then felt as Nanoha's arms joined Fate's, and one of Fate's hands came up to hold one of Nanoha's. The three just sat like that for several minutes, finding comfort in each other's presence and warmth.

After a little while, the three girls got to their feet, taking a walk together, heading outside. The green grass danced in the cool breeze, as did the leaves on the trees nearby. Teana let out a slow, deep breath… and then gasped, her eyes snapping open, as she suddenly sensed the bizarre magical signature overhead. A faint magical rune-circle was hovering in the air, slowly turning. Closer inspection revealed Forerunner calligraphy… and a pattern that Teana recognized.

"That's… That's what appeared back on the UNSC's Earth when Marie, Kaede, Shion, and Mai appeared!"

The trio shifted into their Barrier Jackets, Devices ready just in case. A pillar of light shot down from the floating rune, touching the ground and kicking up wind. After several seconds, it vanished, depositing a person who stumbled to her hands & knees. She slowly, shakily got to her feet as the rune above vanished.

She looked around 14 years old, with short dark-red hair and blue eyes. She was clad in a black t-shirt and dark-blue pants. She brushed herself off, looking around, and finally setting eyes on the three mages; the trio could see in her eyes grim determination, anger at the world, and – hidden well behind that – sadness and loneliness. They lowered their weapons.

"Where am I?" she asked.

Teana stepped forward. "Midchilda" she replied. "Capital planet of the Time-Space Administration Bureau. …You're the fifth person to appear in front of me in that matter… though the last four were all within several days of each other, several months ago, on a different planet. When those four came to me, it was to get away from their old lives, and from people in them. Each of them had a sad story to tell. …What's _yours_?"

The younger girl sighed as she gathered herself.

"I'm from Earth… well, from _an _Earth. It's 2015. There are these big monsters attacking this one city. They're being combated by a trio of advanced mechs, piloted by three unique people. As for me? I'm a soldier. Years back, I got damn near killed by a grenade explosion. A group called NHIS put me back together; I'm a cyborg now… and legally their property. I was sent to the city as the pilot of an experimental war-mech called the Jet-2; the Jet-1, also called Jet-Alone, was a… rather abysmal failure of an unmanned mech. But things have… gone bad. My mech and I haven't been able to do much more than inconvenience the monsters. My employers/owners have called me an embarrassment. They… They were planning on "shutting me down". I came here after accepting some offer from… something, or someone; I don't know which. I just… I've tried so hard – so fucking hard! – to live up to it all. Those three other pilots… I've tried to bond with them to maybe get them on my side, but they can't get past their own psychological hang-ups. …One of them, the only boy of the three, actually was starting to open up to me, but… I had to flee, before NHIS shut down and removed my implants and left me confined to an iron lung or life-support for the rest of my God-forsaken life, or even just stood back and let me die, since I'm legally already dead. I took the offer given to me, the light whisked me away, and now I'm here."

Nanoha, Fate, and Teana looked at each other, digesting all this. Fate took a step forward, speaking in a soft, motherly tone.

"What's your name?" she asked.

The girl looked like she was taken aback by Fate's tone, as if nobody had ever spoken to her with kindness and concern. "…Mana. Mana Kirishima."

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**UNSC Hospital Ship **_**Hopeful**_

**Geosynchronous Orbit Over Cranagan**

**Next Day**

Teana sighed as she strolled down the hallway. The debriefing of Kirishima had been rather interesting; information on the bizarre monstrosities given the equally-bizarre moniker of "Angels" (with the "ninth", a being described by Mana as "the mother of all daddy-longlegs", being the most recent), the three humanoid mechs called "Evangelions" and the three neurotic teens who had to pilot them, and the shadowy, ONI-esque organization called NERV (with what little Mana knew about its head, a man called Ikari, painting a worryingly Parangosky-esque picture in Teana's mind), and all happening on an Earth with only a little over two billion people, thanks to an epic catastrophe 15 years earlier that literally blew Antarctica to bits, among other calamities. It all sounded like one hell of a mess, and it was highly likely that the coalition would eventually have to swing by and help get things sorted out… once they could find the dimensional coordinates of the Earth that Mana had come from, that is.

The girls had been working to help ease Mana into things, get her to open up. It turned out that her morose personality she'd shown upon her arrival was just due to recent stress, weariness, and the fresh decision to abandon her world. Among friendly new faces, her 'true' personality soon became apparent: gung-ho, boisterous, casual, thrill-seeking, somewhat foul-mouthed, and very, very boyish. In fact, being pressed by the girls revealed that Mana was so unfeminine because, due to events in her past, and what she was now, she was _violently _opposed to the mere idea of her own femininity; she staunchly refused to allow herself any "girlish" actions, habits, or even thoughts. A brain-scan showed she was _not _transgendered; it was wholly voluntary and psychological. The girls of RF6 and the coalition's psychologists alike knew that this total repression/rejection of a facet of herself was _not _healthy, though they did not press the issue with her… yet.

The various medical specialists who learned the details of Mana's nature were quite dismayed; even by Bureau/Scaglietti standards her cybernetics were not quite cutting-edge, while by the UNSC and Phoenix League Federation's standards, it was a wonder how she was functioning at all. Thus, she was currently aboard the UNSC's most advanced hospital ship, as UNSC and PLF bio-technicians performed extensive work on her (when offered the "upgrades", she had leapt at the chance). Several components could be flat-out removed, UNSC organ and tissue flash-cloning tech enabling the replacement of the destroyed organs they had taken the place of; she would again have healthy & complete lungs, a pancreas, a complete small intestine (the 50% that had survived the grenade years ago had been stitched together to form a working but shorter-than-normal one), a gallbladder, a spleen, and a uterus & ovaries (though they saved and transferred the data that had been in the hard drive that had taken the place of her old uterus). Flash-cloned neurons repaired her spinal damage, leaving the old mechanical components unneeded, and the dormant control chips that NHIS had clandestinely placed in her heart and brainstem were carefully removed. The internal reinforcements/replacements in her arms were being replaced with much more up-to-date and capable ones, and her immune system was given a healthy boost.

She would be in reconstructive/augmentative surgery for a better part of the day, and then she would emerge better than ever.

Teana entered the lobby, finding her team there along with Subaru, Ginga, Nanoha, Fate, Erio, Caro, Erika, and Timmy. She took a seat between Subaru and Kaede, who both each put an arm around her.

"Think she'll enjoy the end results?" Teana asked.

"Oh yeah" Ahsoka replied. "Definitely. …I wish we could do something about her… issues regarding parts of herself."

"One step at a time" Sarah said. "If we go at it too hard or too fast, she'll clam up and refuse to open up for any of us. We've gotta go nice and slow and easy so she'll be comfortable."

"Bow-chicka-bow-wow" Marie said with a grin. Sarah simply placed one hand palm-down atop Marie's head, and then thumped the top of the hand with her other fist. Marie let out a slight "ow" buried amongst her giggles.

Suddenly, Shion sat bolt-upright, eyes wide as she sensed something coming. Before anyone could ask what was up, a swirl of black 'smoke' appeared in the center of the room. From it emerged a tall alien figure, faded red robes and golden armor highlighting a tall, slender, blue-skinned body, topped by a mouthless face with glowing green eyes. Shion, recognizing the individual by his unique psychic signature, immediately got up and knelt to a knee.

"Prelate Zeratul…" she spoke, head bowed.

"Templar Shion" the long-missing Protoss replied in his low, calm tone. "Ulan told me of you. The first human Dark Templar… and I can see the strength of your spirit from here. It was a wise choice."

"T-Thank you, Prelate."

Zeratul nodded and then turned his attention to the others. "I bring news you would do well to hear. There is another realm, one where you can find a powerful ally to aid your cause." He pointed to Erika. "Her Keyblade can open a portal to that realm."

"W-Who is this 'ally'?" Erika asked.

"…The cloaked girl who has been aiding you as of recently. I do not know if she may have companions who could further aid our cause, nor do I know if there are enemies in that realm; if you go, do so expecting trouble."

"…When should we leave?" Nanoha asked.

"As soon as possible, preferably. Something is coming; something terrible. We will need every skilled hand we can find."

The others looked around at each other, and decided wordlessly but unanimously. "We'll go as soon as our newest friend is out of surgery" Teana said.

Zeratul looked at her. "Surgery? Another new ally has been wounded?"

"No" Fate replied. "Years ago, she was badly wounded on her own world, but her world's cybernetics technology is… inferior to that which we now have access to. She's being… upgraded."

"…I see. I fear I must take my leave now; there are other preparations that I must see to. Farewell."

With a whorl of blackness, Zeratul vanished into/through the Void.

"Things are heating up…" Marie said.

**-**_**SCENE BREAK**_**-**

**Next Day**

The travel group gathered outside Riot Force 6's headquarters. The seven girls of Gamma, Nanoha, Fate, Subaru, Ginga, Erio, Caro, Timmy, & Erika at the head, all made ready. They had already informed everyone who wasn't coming of the situation, and they in turn swore to hold down the fort while the team was away; right now, Hayate and the Wolkenritter stood nearby, ready to observe and stand guard over the portal that would soon be formed. Mana K. was still recovering from yesterday's surgeries; she was up and (carefully) walking around, but wouldn't be cleared for active duty for a few more days. She too was here, stubbornly refusing to allow Shamal to help support her.

Focusing, Erika summoned the Stroke of Midnight and gripped it with both hands, closing her eyes as she called up magical power, infusing it with her will. Her eyes snapped open as she pointed the blade's tip forward. A beam of light shot straight out, stopping in the center of the little field they all stood in. It rapidly grew to form a swirling dark-blue portal with purple along the edges.

"This is where we're supposed to go?" Mai asked.

"Y-Yes" Erika replied. "I'm positive."

Teana summoned a Shadow Clone and sent it through. Several seconds later, it came back through, unharmed.

"It's clear, Boss" the Teana duplicate said to the original. "Kinda cold and dark and spooky, but nothing we can't handle with all the firepower we're bringing to bear."

The Shadow Clone then dispelled, its knowledge transferring to Teana's mind. "Okay" the redhead said. "Let's do this."

One by one, everyone funneled through the portal.

**-**_**BOOK 9 END**_**-**

And that's it for Book 9. Book 10 – "Into the Dark" – will pick up immediately where this one leaves off. It will be in the "Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha" / "Kingdom Hearts" Crossover section. Why, you ask? Simple: the place everyone's going to is the Realm of Darkness (i.e., where Mickey got his current Keyblade, where Sora & Rika ended up after killing Xemnas, etc). Who will they find there? Stay tuned and find out.

RANDOM BABBLIN'S:

We will first see/hear the direct influence of the story arc's Big Bad at the very end of Book 12, the heroes will first encounter the BB (sorta) in Book 13, and we'll learn exactly who it is in Book 14.

I am strongly considering posting this series on Deviant-Art (while also still continuing to put it here on ), so as to drum up more readership and be able to edit in minor changes more easily than this site lets me. Rest assured, though; new Books and chapters would still come out on first and foremost. Also, the DA posting would include a planned heavy revision of Book 2 (basic plots remain unchanged, but the order of events will be shifted, the battle scenes will be rewritten, and other little changes).

This version of Mana Kirishima is _somewhat _based on the Mana from Gregg Landsman's _Nobody Dies _fic. However, there are notable differences: this Mana is 14, not 16; she comes from what is pretty much the canon Eva-verse, not the altered timeline of _ND_; this Mana's innards-shredding grenade was not thrown by a younger Kaji, but by Some Random Guy Who's Dead Now; and Kaji is not her guardian. The trip to Mana's home Earth is Book 13.

The starship data BONUS-chapter is coming by the end of tonight.

SEE YOU GUYS IN BOOK 10!


	12. BONUS: Starship Data

SEE FIRST CHAPTER FOR MOST DISCLAIMERS

PLEASE READ & REVIEW, AND TEND TO THE TROPE & CHARACTER PAGES

Note: I suck at math (presently in college-level Intermediate Algebra and hovering between C and D in terms of test grades). If I screwed anything up when converting between metric and American measurement systems, I'm sorry. Also, things have been rounded up or down to avoid massive strings of decimal numbers.

**-**_**BONUS CHAPTER START**_**-**

**Data on the various classes of starships used by present members of the coalition (includes groups from the Phoenix League's allies who did not participate in the Battle of Belka)**

**The **_**Starshot**_**:**

**Forerunner **_**M**_**-class Destroyer: **1,600 meters (5,248 ft.)

**UNSC****:**

_**Prowler**_**-class Corvette: **162 meters (532 ft.)

_**Stalwart**_**-class Frigate: **478 meters (~1,568 ft.)

_**Burke**_**-class Destroyer: **485 meters (~1,591 ft.)

_**Point Of No Return**_**-class Stealth Cruiser: **485 meters (~1,591 ft.)

_**Halcyon**_**-class Cruiser: **1,170 meters (3,867.6 ft.)

_**Marathon**_**-class Cruiser: **1,192 meters (~3,910 ft.)

_**Valiant**_**-class Heavy Cruiser: **1,518 meters (~4,980 ft.)

_**Cole**_**-class Carrier: **2,990 meters (9,810 ft.; 1.86 mi.)

_**Austerlitz**_**-class Supercarrier: **3,275 meters (10,742 ft.; 2.03 mi.)

_**Infinity**_**-class Dreadnaught: **5,694 meters (18,681 ft.; 3.54 mi.)

**Sangheili Alliance****:**

_**Sincerity**_**-class Stealth Corvette: **485 meters (1,590 ft.)

_**Vigilance**_**-class Corvette: **956 meters (3,146 ft.)

_**Piety**_**-class Frigate: **1,000 meters (3,280 ft.)

_**Resolution**_**-class Light Cruiser: **1,100 meters (3,608 ft.)

_**Purity**_**-class Destroyer: **1,230 meters (4,034.4 ft.)

_**Resilience**_**-class Light Carrier: **1,455 meters (4,772.4 ft.)

_**Yermo**_**-class Cruiser: **1,500 meters (4,920 ft.)

_**Sanghelios**_**-class Battlecruiser: **1,782 meters (~5,845 ft.; 1.11 mi.)

_**Zealot**_**-class Battleship: **2,000 meters (6,560 ft.; 1.24 mi.)

_**Reverence**_**-class Heavy Cruiser: **3,000 meters (9,840 ft.; 1.86 mi.)

_**Judgment**_**-class Super-Cruiser: **3,500 meters (11,480 ft.; 2.17 mi.)

_**Counselor**_**-class Assault Carrier: **5,346 meters (~17,535 ft.; 3.32 mi.)

_**Divinity**_**-class Supercarrier: **10,692 meters (~35,079 ft.; 6.64 mi.)

**Raynor's Raiders****:**

_**Jacob**_**-class Corvette: **166 meters (544.5 ft.)

_**Isaiah**_**-class Frigate: **366 meters (1,200.5 ft.)

_**Ezekiel**_**-class Destroyer: **440 meters (1.443.2 ft.)

_**Behemoth**_**-class Battlecruiser: **1,252 meters (4.106.6 ft.)

_**Leviathan**_**-class Carrier: **2,100 meters (6.888 ft.; 1.3 mi.)

**Protoss****:**

_**Khaydar**_**-class Frigate: **395 meters (1.295.6 ft.)

_**Twilight**_**-class Destroyer: **475 meters (1,558 ft.)

_**Archon**_**-class Cruiser: **935 meters (3,066.8 ft.)

_**Templar**_**-class Carrier: **2,620 meters (8,593.6 ft.; 1.63 mi.)

_**Khala**_**-class Supercarrier: **3,350 meters (10,988 ft.; 2.08 mi.)

**Phoenix League Federation****:**

_**Ember**_**-class Frigate: **480 meters (1,574.5 ft.)

_**Spark**_**-class Destroyer: **500 meters (1,640 ft.)

_**Blaze**_**-class Cruiser: **1,300 meters (4,264 ft.)

_**Inferno**_**-class Heavy Cruiser: **1,450 meters (4,756 ft.)

_**Conflagration**_**-class Carrier: **2,700 meters (8,856 ft.; 1.68 mi.)

_**Explosion**_**-class Supercarrier: **3,100 meters (10,168 ft.; 1.93 mi.)

**Outreach Confederacy****:**

_**Rio**_**-class Frigate: **430 meters (1,410.4 ft.)

_**Journey**_**-class Frigate: **435 meters (1,426.8 ft.)

_**Wave**_**-class Destroyer: **460 meters (1,508.8 ft.)

_**Migrant**_**-class Destroyer: **495 meters (1,623.6 ft.)

_**Pacific**_**-class Cruiser: **855 meters (2,804.4 ft.)

_**Diaspora**_**-class Cruiser: **950 meters (3,116 ft.)

_**Poseidon**_**-class Carrier: **1,750 meters (5,740 ft.; 1.09 mi.)

_**Exodus**_**-class Carrier: **2,230 meters (7,314.4 ft.; 1.39 mi.)

**Jalaxian Republic****:**

_**Gust**_**-class Frigate: **455 meters (1,492.4 ft.)

_**Gale**_**-class Destroyer: **485 meters (1.590.8 ft.)

_**Storm**_**-class Cruiser: **1,075 meters (3,526 ft.)

_**Cyclone**_**-class Battlecruiser: **1,605 meters (5,264.4 ft.)

_**Maelstrom**_**-class Carrier: **2,375 meters (7,790 ft.; 1.48 mi.)

**Drakonian Federation****:**

_**Scale**_**-class Frigate: **540 meters (1,771.2 ft.)

_**Fang**_**-class Destroyer: **605 meters (~1,985 ft.)

_**Claw**_**-class Cruiser: **1,150 meters (3,773 ft.)

_**Mount**_**-class Carrier: **2,000 meters (6,560 ft.; 1.24 mi.)

**Tripartate****:**

**Lucavi **_**Shade**_**-class Stealth Frigate: **207 meters (679.1 ft.)

**Elvaan **_**Cumulus**_**-class Frigate: **395 meters (~1,296 ft.)

**Elvaan **_**Pulsar**_**-class Destroyer: **455 meters (~1,493 ft.)

**Kyyreni **_**Bayonet**_**-class Destroyer: **522 meters (1,712.6 ft.)

**Lucavi **_**Midnight**_**-class Cruiser: **950 meters (~3,117 ft.)

**Kyyreni **_**Armature**_**-class Cruiser: **1,225 meters (4,019 ft.)

**Elvaan **_**Highwind**_**-class Battlecruiser: **1,720 meters (5,643 ft.; 1.07 mi.)

**Kyyreni **_**Bloodrage**_**-class Battleship: **2,430 meters (7,972.4 ft.; 1.51 mi.)

**Elvaan **_**Forest**_**-class Carrier: **2,650 meters (8,694.2 ft.; 1.65 mi.)

**Lucavi **_**Eclipse**_**-class Supercarrier: **3,500 meters (~11,483 ft.; 2.18 mi.)

**Time-Space Administration Bureau****:**

_**Agile**_**-class Frigate: **790 meters (2,591 ft.)

_**Striker**_**-class Destroyer: **900 meters (2,952 ft.)

_**Lance**_**-class Cruiser: **1,850 meters (6,068 ft.; 1.15 mi.)

_**Apex**_**-class Battleship: **2,500 meters (8,200 ft.; 1.55 mi.)


End file.
